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Interlude - Ravager and the Engineer

Sydney Bartelle stood in the door of the ship's engine room. His handpicked staff and officers looked on behind him and gaped at the sight. Just what they saw from the door was enough to make them wonder if joining the Ravager's crew as engineers was a wise idea.

Sydney recalled the conversation he had with Visas Marr and Rebhorn, that the Ravager was a unique ship with special needs, but he had never expected this.

The engine room of a leviathan-class ship, such as this one, was made up of several rooms with different specialized purposes. The power core needed its own room with devoted shielding, computer terminals, and room with automated doors to contain radiation leaks. The floors and walls of the ship were usually hollow, allowing staff to move in between the walls and perform maintenance. While several rooms filled with terminals and purposes of many kinds were necessary to maintain the ships power, shielding, firepower, engine fuel, and waste, the large was the official 'engine room' in the back.

The actual engine room was the height of the entire ship from top to bottom, and as wide as the ship is wide from left to right; all in order to allow staff free access to the back of the engines to perform maintenance on them. The engines were connected directly to the ship's center keel via columns of a combination of various metals, cushions, and materials to keep a sudden push from crushing the columns or the ship, while still allowing the push provided to push the ship forward.

While this was the largest, and the power core was the most heavily protected, the next achievement of any ship was the Warp Drive. While Warp Drives come in many forms, whether employing plasma, gravity shifting, light travel, or inner-dimensional windows; the most common is a combination of light travel within an inner-dimensional window that uses gravity shifting and plasma-ray shielding to stay safe from various forms of inner-dimensional radiation. The unique trait of the Warp Drives is how the combination of methods are used together. Larger ships require more protection within the dimensional windows, slowing them down, while smaller ships do not have as much surface to protect with plasma-ray shielding.

The Warp-Drive is a system that requires the shield, power core, engines, and its own unique systems to work together in sync perfectly in order to work, all while the crew has to balance the immediate needs of the moment in balancing protection and speed and how rapidly you can enter or exit a new window.

Sydney knew on first sight how royally doomed they were, and regretted his decision to join the Keeper's crew.

On first sight he knew the engines were made of three entirely separate designs from different companies and power requirements, as though someone assembled the engines from a ship-graveyard. It was like someone was trying to stick a USB into a AT6 and expecting them to be compatible. The power core was cracked and the doors obviously meant to keep the radiation leak from spreading were torn off and laying on the floor. The Warp Drive was made up of four cores instead of three, as is standard, thereby creating a great deal of wasted energy; and only God knows where that wasted energy went.

The floors were full of holes, sparks flew off the walls and scattered across the floor, flames shot out of cracked pipes, one of the engine columns had a severe crack in it, and a huge gaping hole was in the wall of the actual engine room. He could see out the back of the ship into space from here. (Sydney wasn't Miraluka.)

"Is this a nightmare?" One of his men asked. They may not be able to see into space like him, but the hole in the wall was obvious enough.

"Sorry, but it's real." He assured them.

"Where do we even begin?"

"The power core is close to leaking!"

"If we ignite the engines, the column will collapse and implode the ship!"

"Everyone!" He barked. They all quieted down. "We have our work ahead of us… I need a report on all damages on my desk… if I have one… within the hour."

"But!"

"Go." He waved them forward.

What was it that kept this ship going? In dog terms, it was like she was crawling on one broken leg.

True to his initial impression, he didn't have a desk. The pile of broken wood that once may have been a desk couldn't even be called a piece of furniture anymore. He had to use the floor for his paperwork.

The nice thing about having a Miraluka crew for engineers was their pin-point accuracy and efficiency with working with three-dimensional objects. The stronger ones could see the layers of materials like x-ray vision. It didn't even take an hour before he was receiving reports on how deeply damaged everything was.

Movement out of the corner of his eye drew his attention, and he looked to see a small floating droid flittering around. It reminded him of a kind of metal snow-flake or ball with a bunch of spike-arms. He watched it curiously as it fluttered around. "Well… what do we have here?" He left his work behind to follow it. It was a droid he recognized from around the ship, they were everywhere, but he did not expect to see it in the engine room.

As he watched, the droid peered closely at the cracked power core. It made a kind of whimpering sound, then a bright light shot out of its face. The light traced the crack, and as he watched, the crack was sealed. Several of his engineers stopped to 'watch'.

With the crack sealed, the droid made a content sound, nodded, and flew away. Sydney watched it disappear into thin air. "Impressive." He murmured. He walked up to the power core and touched it. His men moved to stop him, but he was a very hands-on type.

The crack was gone, although the glass did not feel whole. "Now… why would you reseal it, but not all the way?" It didn't make sense for a droid with a repair function to not have preventative maintenance. He glanced back over the many other problems the ship had, and noted more flying droids. The droids flew right by the holes, the cracks, and the problems almost as though… it was normal.

Why weren't repair droids fixing those problems? He was happy to not be put completely out of work, but it made no sense. Didn't the droids want their ship fixed?

He would have to see if he could access the repair-droid's functions. Logically, he should have access to it from the engine room. Sydney found a terminal and booted it up.

Only to come up with blank. Nothing. Natta. Zilch. Zero.

Not a single word, line, or letter appeared on the screen. It was a black slate. There wasn't even a blinking line accepting input. It was like he never turned it on to begin with.

Bewildered, he turned it off and on again. The same result showed up. He moved to another terminal, and groaned when he received the same result as before.

He ordered his staff to turn on every single terminal in the room, even though they couldn't technicaly see the screens as Miraluka, and he glanced out across the room. Every single terminal screen was a blank slate.

There wasn't an operating system, bios, or even command prompt shown. "Well, that's just great…" He groaned. The computers didn't work.

Sydney didn't know what to do, his hands were effectively tied. They didn't have the materials to repair the ship, there was just too much damage, and the systems were not operational.

The Ravager watched with fascination as the peoples moved about inside her. It was so much fun observing them.

For years she had nothing to do but sit, and the best times ever was when Master Varus was around! But now there were so many Master peoples around! She almost didn't know what to do with all the peoples!

The one that was not blind in her rear was especially fascinating today. He portrayed all kinds of aggravation.

Not that her extensions with Master Varus and Master little-Varus were not being overloaded in sensory input that she was eating up, but the one in her rear seemed especially stressed about something.

What could ever be wrong? Did he enter her rear just to vent?

Ravager just couldn't understand the peoples. So she tended about her business cleaning, straightening, healing, and observing. The people took equal fascination with her as well, and took to showing affection to her mini-bots in various forms she had never seen even with Master Varus.

The people had started off bringing mini-Ravagers into her belly, and then occupying it. Then they had started branching out and finding other parts of her insides to idle in. They had an energy about them that excited her, but also were becoming aggravated with certain little things, such as the little spaces or parts that were nice and neat on the floor. (Everything was how it should be… Master Nihilus likes it this way. So what was their problem?)

Ravager was a little put off that Master Varus and friend HK-47 insisted on her keeping her heart and mind closed off, but Master Varus's will was Master Varus's will! There must be a good reason.

Ah! And now Mr-disgruntled-in-rear person is looking for Master Varus's servant puppet person! Ravager followed him around.

Mr. Disgruntled said, "Ashley, is the captain around?"

"Sorry, he is busy. Is everything okay?" She looked curious, and a little scared. Why?

Mr. Disgruntled-person started listing off all kinds of 'things' that he considered a problem, and the Ravager laughed. It was cute how mad he was.

Mr. Disgruntled-person swatted at her mini-bot and Ravager growled. Meany. If he don't like her mini-Ravagers, then he wouldn't get one! Ravager imitated a sound Master Varus made when he was mad at Master Nihilus once. Mr. Disgruntled-person stopped and looked at her mini-bot. "Did that thing just blow a raspberry at me?"

Ravager ordered her mini's to move and leave the meany alone. She tended to watching the Master Varus's peoples. Master Varus had ordered that they be kept safe. So safe they shall be! To that end, she made sure there were rooms closed off as well that Master Nihilus wanted sealed from non-Master Nihilus's

Master Varus would be proud.

Master Nihilus would be proud.

Note: I wanted to express the Ravager's point of view briefly and have a small about of written-space that expresses the Ravager's crew starting to get integrated into the ship, and suffice to say, they are not happy with what they are finding.

Also, accept the horrible grammar and writing at the Ravager POV part. I did that on purpose, and I'm not changing that.

I know this chapter was really REALLY short compared to most, but I wanted to have a small in-between-episode-moment to bring up some Ravager stuff and the crew's beginning relationship with the ship itself.

I have an idea of what to do in future chapters, and I am rather excited to actually sitting down and writing it! :D It's going to be eeepiic.