Disclaimer: I still don't own Red Dwarf or any of its characters.
Chapter Two
Nirvana Crane walked briskly down the corridor, trying to get to the briefing on time without looking like she was in a rush. She'd had a terrible night, an even worse morning, and quite frankly was not in even the slightest mood for giving a report to the captain on how their new hard-light capabilities would effect navigation and propulsion. Truth be told, it wouldn't effect either in the slightest. Yet when the captain asked her that question, she couldn't just say "nothing." Not on this ship, not with this crew. Instead she had to spend three hours writing an incredibly fancy way of saying "nothing", using boring figures, impressive diagrams, and fancy phrasing. "Nothing" had proven to be quite intricate.
As she approached the briefing room, she saw Jason Vogel, one of the ship's propulsion engineers, waiting for her outside. His foot tapped the floor like a jackhammer chipping through concrete. He caught sight of her and frowned.
"Well it's about time, commander," he snapped. "What would the captain think of me if I were late?"
She rolled her eyes. "Don't start with me, lieutenant. I've had a dreadful night."
"What do you mean? It started out nicely. We had some of the best 'exercise' ever."
"Believe me Jason, it wasn't that much of a work out."
He was taken aback. "What do you m--"
"Look we don't have time for this now, we've got to give this ridiculous report. Come on." She opened the door to the briefing room, leaving Jason standing outside, his ego momentarily deflated.
Captain Platini sat behind a desk, pouring himself a cup of tea and admiring his mirror image on the surface of the desk. Nirvana cleared her throat, and he looked up. "Ah, commander, just in time," he said smoothly, raising his hand in salute. "I was just perusing through some earlier reports. Is yours ready?"
Of *course* you were, she thought, and returned the salute. "Yes sir, we can begin as soon as Lieutenant Vogel arrives."
Jason shuffled in just as she finished talking and raised a nervous salute. "Captain, my apologies for arriving late."
The captain ignored him. "Please begin. I have a hair appointment at 1600 hours and I don't want to miss it."
Nirvana started to set up the charts and Jason began. "Sir, as you are well aware, questions have been raised as to whether or not our hard-light capabilities will have any effect on ship propulsion or navigation."
"Yes lieutenant, of COURSE I know. Now get to the point: will there be any effects?"
"As far as we can tell sir, no," Nirvana replied. "I've entered our flight plan into Stocky and asked him to equate the time it will take to reach our proposed rendezvous point, in both hard and soft-light. I've also asked him to calculate maneuvering capabilities and to factor in unexpected events we might come across, such as time holes, worm holes, black holes, and the near-improbable defeat by an unknown enemy."
The captain nodded. "And?"
"Exactly the same results in both forms, with the added bonus that now we have more options when we encounter anomalies. Of course, we must also be a lot more cautious."
"In what way?"
"Well for instance--"
"Captain, isn't it perfectly obvious?" tried Jason, sliding in front of Nirvana. The captain threw him a look that said "of course I know, you git, I just want to hear YOU say it." The captain was very good at giving those kind of looks. It came from years of looking down at everyone from the height of his own intellect.
Jason paused for a second before recovering his composure. "We must stay in soft-light form when going through, say, a black hole. If we were in hard-light at the time, the ship and everyone on it would be crushed, just like any other ship and crew."
"That makes sense."
"But if an attack would come, we would no longer have to be concerned about the generator being destroyed, as we've had to in the past. In hard-light form, we would be invulnerable. No attack whatsoever could damage us. In fact, I recommend that we stay in hard-light as often as we can. We'll be invincible."
"Yes yes, that's fascinating, lieutenant," the captain sighed, taking a sip of his tea. "It's also exactly what I've heard from every other report today. Now did you actually find out if propulsion would be effected, as I asked you to?"
"Um...well I, uh...." Jason looked at Nirvana for help. She stood in the corner with her arms folded, looking fabulous as always--but also quite upset. She just nodded for him to continue.
He turned back to the captain, who was still waiting. "Well, yes of course sir, I just thought that you'd like to fully understand what hard-light would entail."
"As I said before, sir, there would be no effect," Nirvana said from behind Jason.
"Thank you, commander." He looked back at Jason. "What about power? Will an increase in power yield be needed to maintain our top speed in hard-light?"
"Lieutenant Baker's calculations show that no extra power will be needed. His predictions back-up the ones I had personally worked out."
"Oh, how tedious for you." He took another sip of his tea, and slowly put the cup down. "What will you do to ensure there are no more--unfortunate accidents?"
Nirvana closed her eyes when she heard this, remembering the poor souls that were asleep when the hard-light drive was first tested on the entire ship. The engineers had set a frequency that would allow all the light bees to react synchronically with the ship when it turned to hard-light. Unfortunately, a minor miscalculation resulted in a flaw concerning the light bees of crew members that were asleep at the time of the switch. Since they were at minimal power when asleep, the computer had "skipped over" their signals and didn't synchronize their light bees at exactly the same time as everything else, resulting in a delay in their conversion. Therefore, they were still soft-light for a minute or two when the ship became hard-light--not a problem there. But when the ship turned back to soft, the 17 crew members that were asleep--and had just switched to hard-light thanks to the delay--sank out of the ship. Without the protection of the ship's pressure shield, their light bees quickly crumpled.
She suddenly realized that Jason hadn't responded. Looking up, she found both men staring at her, waiting for an answer.
"Sorry. I was just thinking about the incident, sir." She began to flip through some papers she had brought with her. "Sir, I've been working with Ensign Forbes to design a device that will better synchronize the crew member with the generator." She found the page she was looking for and handed it to the captain. "It works independently instead of relying on a set frequency, enabling the individual to switch on his or her own. All that would be required is an announcement before the ship is about to change."
She noticed that the captain had put the page aside and was staring at his image on the desk again.
"Sir? Did you hear what I--"
"Commander, no one on this ship would want to take the time to send an announcement to the crew. It's so...menial. I wouldn't want to force it on anyone."
Jason stepped forward. "It also isn't necessary, sir. We have perfected the frequency and have tested it numerous times on sleeping crew members. There will be no further problems--as long as someone denigrates themselves to the task of switching the frequency on before the ship goes soft-light to hard, or vice versa. I feel sorry for the poor person already." Both men shared a hearty laugh at this.
Nirvana was stunned. "But sir! They thought the frequency was perfect last time they tried it ship-wide, and look at the tragedy that occurred. How can we be sure that it's fail-safe?"
"Commander, I have faith in my crew. If the lieutenant says that the problem's been corrected, then I believe him."
She looked at Jason, who replied with a smug smile. She frowned. "You're really willing to take that chance?"
The captain stood up. "That will be all for today. Thank you both for your informative report. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a hair appointment to go to."
Nirvana gave an impatient salute and stormed out of the room. Jason watched her go, then turned to the captain.
"My, she certainly has gotten emotional, hasn't she?" he quipped.
"She's been that way ever since her encounter with that technician we brought aboard from that mining vessel. It's a shame, really. She was such a model crew member. Ah well, at least her IQ hasn't suffered." Jason turned to leave. "Oh, lieutenant? Be sure and assign someone to that boring job of switching the frequency on and off. I have more important things to do."
"I'll get my best man on it right away, sir. I also have better things to do than assigning someone to a task."
The captain smiled. Jason saluted and made his exit, only to find Nirvana waiting outside the door.
"Commander? Is something wrong?"
She glared at him. "You KNOW that the frequency isn't 100 percent perfect," she whispered, trying to hide her rage. "Yet you go ahead and tell him that the tests are complete, that everything's fine. Why? Well I'll tell you why. Because you wanted to be the first one to tell him so that he'd notice you and give you credit later."
"Nonsense. You just don't want to admit that Lieutenant Vogel surpassed your vast intellect in this area." He leaned in close. "What future areas will I surpass you on, hmm? I think the sky's the limit for Mr. Vogel. I really do."
"Oh yes, riding the high tide of your small triumph today. Quite sad if you ask me. It's one thing to want to succeed, but quite another when the entire crew is at stake."
He ignored her. "Lieutenant-Commander Vogel. That can't be far off at the pace I'm going. I bet I'll be captain by Christmas."
Nirvana resisted the urge to pull all her hair out in frustration and stuff it down his throat. "Jason, when are you going to see that some things are more important than your own personal glory? When will EVERYONE see that?"
Jason patted her head. "Really, commander, I'm surprised at your attitude. To think that you actually care so much about the rest of the crew, it's hilarious. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a task to reassign." He sauntered off, leaving Nirvana clutching her fists. She thought about waiting for the captain to return to try and have a word with him, but she knew that it would be like talking to a brick wall. He was the most stubborn man she had ever met.
With a sigh, she began to walk back to her quarters, trying not to breathe the thick egotism in the air. The crew had always been arrogant and egotistical, true, but in the few months since they had developed a hard-light drive, things had grown worse. A LOT worse.
On the surface, the discovery hardly made a difference to everyday life--they could touch things before, they could still touch things. Now as hard-light holograms, however, they could pass as normal, 'living' people, able to touch things that weren't computer generated. They had gained an independence from the ship and its hologram generator. They could do things they were never able to do before, like conduct actual research missions instead of simply taking measurements, or rescue a ship in danger instead of just passing it by. Taking it one step further, hard-light now made it possible to invite 'living' people onboard to "improve trade relations and offer a safe harbor for any unfortunates we rescue,"as the captain had said in his speech to the crew. In essence, it meant they could show off their 'greatness' up close and personal with whomever they met. Their inflated egos could venture off the ship and suffocate even more people.
Even worse than this was the fact that no one really knew who discovered hard-light. One day the crew noticed objects sinking through the ship--first it was a flask, then a vase, then a desk--as the hard light began to randomly effect objects within the ship. Some engineers were able to stabilize it, and everyone began asking who was responsible for such an ingenious discovery. The problem was that no one could say for certain who it had been--in fact, hard-light appeared to have developed on its own somehow. Therefore, everyone took credit for it, from the highest officers to the lowest ranks. Each crew member began to collect his or her own "proof" to show how he or she alone was the genius behind the invention. Even the captain had been caught in the rush; he was the captain because he had the highest I.Q, thus he must have been the one to invent hard-light, and the proof he presented to show himself as the inventor was immense both in quantity and vagueness. No one, including the captain, could prove anything for certain. In fact, as more and more proof became available, it became more and more obvious that hard-light had really been an accident.
Slowly the efforts to discover who was responsible began to wear off, but the arrogance, humongous egos, and rivalry had stayed. Hardly any work was getting done anymore, since most everyone felt that they were "above" performing even the normal duties of their assigned positions. Everything kept getting reassigned and nothing was getting done. Save for a few crew members--Nirvana included--that weren't so infatuated with their own intellectual greatness and continued to do their work, the ship would be a complete ruin. Frankly she was surprised to see Jason even showing up for the report; he had been one of the first to become super-overly-insanely arrogant. She realized, though, that he had his hidden agenda, just like most everyone else on the ship had, and that was to rise above the rest at any cost. It made her sick just thinking about it.
She reached her quarters and opened the doors. Her fingers twisted as they undid the ties in her hair, letting it sweep down her back in a graceful wave. She tried to relax but didn't have much success; she had too much on her mind. What was wrong with her? Why hadn't she become just like everyone else? Why did she allow her emotions to get in the way?
Even her friends had started asking her if she had seen the ship's psychiatrist yet. "You're getting too emotional, Nirvana," she remembered Susan Forbes saying. "It's not good for your IQ, and with all that you've accomplished, we don't want to see you fall from grace."
"Fall from grace indeed," she muttered, brushing her hair with vigor. "You're the ones that are a disgrace." She caught sight of herself in the mirror and sighed. She didn't look good. In fact, she looked tired and stressed out, which was exactly how she felt. She was just so frustrated with everyone! Things used to be so different. She loved her job, loved the research and the opportunities, the discoveries, the satisfaction. But ever since that blasted hard-light drive came about...
She collapsed on her bed. No, the hard-light drive wasn't the problem. She had been unhappy long before then. Since she had been reactivated, nothing was the same. She had tried to plunge herself into her work, hoping to take her mind off things and force her life to become the way it was. Yet no matter what she accomplished, or how much "exercise" she had, she couldn't change what had happened or how she felt.
Nirvana opened the cupboard above the bed and took out her music box; she always had to hide it there so that no one would find out she kept something so 'sentimental.' She lifted the lid and let its gentle melody fill the room. Humming along with the music, she removed the small note from the compartment underneath.
She knew what was missing, what was "wrong" with her, even if she wouldn't admit it. She had suffered a temporary hormonal distraction. In other words, she had fallen in love.
Try as she might to tell herself that it had never happened, that somehow it had been some crazy dream, she couldn't deny it any longer. That's what had set her apart from the rest of the crew; she was probably the only one who had experienced it. Now there was no going back, even if she wanted to.
Unfolding the paper, she reread the note for the hundredth time since she had first received it, and sighed. "Arnie, wherever you are, I hope things are better for you than they are for me," she said quietly. "At least one of us would be happy then."