Happier Times
Candidates for First Officer promotion will undergo Warrant Officer status until rating a 'Satisfactory' from an evaluating Captain. - Section 11 Weyland-Yutani Fleet Regulations
The commercial towing vehicle Nostromo reattached itself to the massive refinery and began to chug it's way out of an asteroid belt far far away from Earth. The hyper-space engines began to hum. It was the rare time when all seven of them happily worked together as a smoothly working organism. Light speed transition.
Ripley's voice smoothly echoed with the pre-hyper-space checklist throughout the ship. She had it memorized.
Parker knelt above the heat regulation system in the floor of the engine room.
He flipped the activation switches on the cap cylinder of the last cooling unit. One last button and his eyes reflected with satisfaction as it slid slowly down into the reactor. It felt right. After closing the lid and wiping it he stood up with satisfaction.
"Rawwwrrr!" he growled.
"Yowsaa, Mr. Parker" Brett responded. The assistant engineer's face reflected pure green as the last hint of red disappeared off the engine temperature display. The engines were at ready.
On the flight deck Lambert scrambled with a few final calculations but Ripley was not going to miss the interval.
"Navigation console?" Ripley said calmly.
Lambert did not respond.
They were ahead of schedule. She could 'feel' Parker bringing the engines up to power. They could all feel it…and it felt good. She could now 'see' the path home. She made her calculations to make the jump into the early window allotted to them by shipping control. She moved quickly
Kane watched with amused indifference. With Ripley acting as pilot-in-command during her evaluation there wasn't much for him to do. He knew how much Ripley irked Lambert but noticed the navigator ignored the warrant now. There was too much to do.
"Nav Con?" Ripley repeated her question. The curly haired brunette expected the navigation section's input on-time despite the fact this was a exceptionally large system with an several large bodies in co-orbital configuration…even where they were at the edge of stellar system.
"Just a sec please." Subconsciously she listened to Parkers raspy voice counting down his power up sequence. A barely audible whine tickled her ears at the same time. It was right. It was going to take us home.
Ripley looked at the wire frame cube on her monitor that represented the entry window they needed to be in. It coincided with a clearance window with all other known space traffic using the shipping lanes. Weyland-Yutani paid for that slot and with the Nostromo travelling a certain rate and speed and path…she would bring the refinery home to Earth ahead of the profit accounting schedule. Time was money. Bonuses for everyone.
For a command trainee to bring it all home ahead-of-time was the type of efficiency that put Ripley in a Warrant spot in the first place. She numbered in a quick calculation that showed up in the plot coordinates. It showed up on the main charting screen.
The calculation inserted itself at the end of Lambert's calculus and went from red numbers to green. It jived with the calculations Lambert was still making, but Lambert erased them anyway without any additional perturbance showing on her face.
Ripley didn't know why. She was a navigator by Weyland-Yutani training as well. Why she wouldn't want the help was beyond her.
"Navigation?" Ripley asked.
No response.
Captain Dallas, for his part offered no input either. He restrained his own inclination to tell Ripley not to push. He had to let her command in her own way. That was all he was supposed to do. Watch and evaluate. …and only intervene as necessary to preserve safety AND their precious cargo. But if he had to intervene then Ripley automatically failed.
Dallas turned his head to see Kane looking back at him with a wry grin. In five trips together the Captain and his first officer had never had so much as a contentious disagreement. Dallas took a laissez-faire attitude towards command: If it wasn't broke, he did not fix it. He let everybody do their part and he supervised as laconically as possible.
He had risen to captaincy from engineering by sheer adherence to the company rules and by not risking ANYTHING. He was not ambitious…and you did not need to be. Just have no mistakes on your record…and if luck and timing were on your side Weyland-Yutani would promote from with-in. By his calculation it was better to be calmly steady than eagerly ambitious. He stroked his beard and silently shook his head at Ripley's pushy manner. He nodded at Kane.
"Lambert?"
Though rigid and stubborn Ripley could also adapt and overcome. She swung a look at Dallas who did not return her glance. She didn't appreciate his style of command, but Lambert was his navigator and if he was used to her being inefficient who was she to say anything? Dallas wasn't going to do anything and if she kept on pushing he might rate her as command evaluation negatively.
"We still have 5.25 minutes to make the bonus window," she said pointedly. "Jumping to next station check in sequence…Engineering console?"
Instead of Parker's dark africanic face Brett's weathered visage appeared on Ripley's monitor.
"Yo…" Brett acknowledged. He had intercepted the communications interface session to where he was.
"Why am I not looking at Parker and at you?" Ripley wanted to ask. She bit her tongue
"Hyperdrive status," was all she demanded.
"Man, she can hear me." She could hear and see Parker over Brett's shoulder. And, indeed his voice was echoing through the ship.
"Engines at 60% in 5…4…3…2…1," Parker resumed his power-up count down. Ripley could see h im slowly moving the several engine control sliders forward with methodical coordination as he focused his eyes on multiple gauges. "60% and nominal. Coming forward for 70. Man…tell her to come back to me."
That, also, echoed throughout the ship. Ripley shook her head.
"Parker, give me Engineering status confirmation for departure window." She was doing it by the book and determined to drive everybody crazy.
Brett unnecessarily relayed this message.
"Mr. Parker, the bridge would like Hyperdrive staging confirmation for the bonus window…now, I think."
"Tell Miss Ripley Engineering will be optimal, on schedule, in 1.2 minutes." Parker said evenly without looking over.
"Miss Ripley, the chief Engineer says…" Ripley cut him off with a tapped finger on a mute icon. She did nothing to express her displeasure for the engineers' lack of professionalism. It was Dallas's crew, once again. What could she do? She gave a curt laugh.
"Engineering predicts on schedule," she said moving-on on the checklist. "Science?"
Over in his observation blister Ashe watched on in confusion and damn near panic. He didn't get it, but he did not show it. He did not understand the emotions driving these petty conflicts amongst the humans of the Nostromo. It was a logical loop error. And these errors were piling up in his electronic brain. It wasn't his fault. He was only designed to look like a human, not think like them.
"Science Console standing-by" Ashe replied promptly. He was the model of cooperation and efficiency that Ripley wanted.
"Status check."
"Perfect hyperspace bubble has enveloped vehicle and cargo towage…" Ashe reported. "…and increasing optimally along non-dimensional spatial parameters. No anomalies detected. Science department approves this configuration."
It was the right answer.
However Ashe could not feel it. Not the way the others could feel their interaction with the hyperspatial plane increasing. He did not understand their sensory perceptions. He was not deriving pleasure the way they were. It was all driving him crazy. It was driving him crazy along with all the lying to them. Pretending to be human.
"Science approval at 09:19.213, sidereal time with engines at 70." Ripley checked off. She waited a beat but she wanted to make the window with easy time to spare
"Navigation?"
"Yeah…Plot Console standing-by." Lambert punched several final buttons on her keypad furiously. "Final trajectory and course laid out…accounting for all drift and gravitational influences until outer rim of Solar system."
The jumble of mathematical formulae invaded alls screens with a green curving line that showed up on the 3-D display as a cooridor into the future and through non-dimensional space. The first part of that line was a lighter shade of green than the rest. Its starting point began in the box of their departure window.
"Navigation…" Ripley began, but Parker chirped in to interrupt her.
"Engineering 'by" he wasn't waiting to be called in order again. Typical Parker. Typical Nostromo. He went on not waiting for acknowledgement. "Hyperdrive at 90% and optimal. Standing by for full thrust and hyperspatial transition with PIC. With ya, Rip"
Now his round head-banded face showed up in her crew interface display with a cool smile. She could tell he was feeling the raw power of his giant reactor system rumbling smoothly throughout his body. He was feeling the anticipation of going faster-than-light. She could feel it too.
"Roger," she said with satisfaction. "Engineering – hyperdive system optimal at 9:21.115 sidereal time. Ready for transit" Almost done with checklist. Ripley turned her attention back to the woman who worked in her own discipline.
"Navigation. An outer celestial body is imperfectly calculated for. Please recalculate."
"It's green," Lambert said briefly.
"Initial point is not in perfect calculation, Lambert" Ripley ran her finger along the slightly pale green first segment of the navigation plot. Even the font of her first computational line was that same slight pale green.
Lambert, for her part, did not even bother to look again. She began to strap herself in for the jump to hyperspace. She took off her headset. She could hear Ripley just fine. Too fine.
"Calculation can not be perfected upon. It is a dust cluster. It is not a factor."
"All bodies must be accurately calculated," Ripley insisted.
"It's at pilot-in-command's discretion. If you want to try refine the plot for that dust…go for it." Lambert challenged. She pressed her back into her astronaut's seat and felt the power of the Nostromo's fusion reactor tingle her spine.
Ripley blinked. Doing a fast calculation in her head she typed it all in rapidly with the number pad next to her throttle quadrant. In a few seconds the initial segment turned the same shade of green as the green line curving into the three dimensional plot into space time. 48.9 seconds in front of the approaching departure 'window'.
"New plot entered and accepted by mother computer," Ripley checked off. "Thank you Navigation."
"Fuck you," Lambert said under her breath. She closed her eyes. She didn't need to see any more. Dallas and Kane shared a glance and laughed. Ashe looked back at the both of them and smiled…but he really didn't get it. Ripley ignored it all. She was going to make this window despite all of them. She keyed the radio.
"This is commercial towing vehicle Nostromo transiting to hyperspace in 15 seconds."
She settled back in her seat and placed her hand on the throttle quadrant.
"Beginning power-up now."
"Right." Parker's voice acknowledged that he was in coordination with her for the power-up of the hyperdrive's final 10%. It wasn't the regulation reply, but it was still good enough at this point.
"5…4…3…2…1" Parker said as he used both hands to glide all the engine sliders smoothly forward. The reactor burned. All his green glowing gauges went from light green to pure white.
Parker gave her the power. Ripley released the potential.
The throttle grips concealed in her fist were methodically moved forward by her
"5…" Nostromo lurched.
"4…" she watched for changes. They all did.
"3…" she sucked in her tummy and took a deep breath.
"2…" stars began to turn into streaks
"1" time and space distorted.
"Hyperspace," she announced. The many white dots of Parker's engine status lights finally turned blue. The hyperdrive was engaged
The Nostromo was at sidereal speed.
She let herself relax and released the throttle quadrant. She breathed deeply.
Dallas nodded with approval. He couldn't have done a better job himself.
"Good job, Ripley." As far as he was concerned she was ready to be the first officer on her own ship.
Down in Engineering Brett reached into a cooler under his seat and tossed his chief a beer.
"Well done, Mr. Parker"
Parker cracked it open with a smile.
"Ha-ha! Thanks, Brett baby"
On the flight deck Ripley confirmed:
"We are inside an inbound cooridor initialized at .381 sidereal seconds ago. We will be inside our system in 8 months 16 days 4:3.4441 hours with-in the early delivery bonus window. Congratulations. You will be rewarded for your efforts. Good job."
The Nostromo floated in space and spun-on into infinity…headed home.
