Chapter 8: I guess you could say I'm in charge
I had to give Holloway credit - I wouldn't have thought of putting nets all over the deck to hold things down. I hadn't expected a pleasure yacht to have nets on board. It worked, though; Jesse and I sat outside in the corridor while damaged fighters were shoved inside. Just as we were allowed back in and were running to check out our new finds a furious whirlwind blew in.
"WHAT THE FRAKKING HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING TO MY VIPER YOU IDIOTIC CIVILIAN PIECE OF…" He looked set to bellow all day. I shut the hatch on his rant and headed across the cargo bay floor.
"Gracious sort, isn't he?" I asked Jesse airily. I knew he could hear me, because the hatch had hissed open again. "Are all Fleet so well-brought up, do you think? Or is it acquired in flight training?"
"What?" I don't think he expected that. I'd never been so blatantly rude to a superior before. I'd saved the sharp edge of my tongue for my equals or near-equals in the social sense.
I headed for the lone Raptor in the bay, a large lump of twisted metal. A smear of something had melted over the hatch. Inside two suited figures waved frantically. I waved back and hoisted a cutting torch, making the sign for 'five minutes' with my fingers. "Jesse, check the Viper pilots." Three were getting out on their own now the bay was pressurised, but seven were still. "If they don't have a pulse, dump them with the other bodies." I got to work cutting a new door. It took, as I'd promised, five minutes; that stuff was tough. The entire back end of the Raptor was so much metallic garbage. It would never fly again.
I yanked the hatch open with the manual release. "You two alright?" I asked. "Who are you?"
"I'm Zebra; this is Panther."
"I meant your names." I gave them a hand down. "Welcome aboard the Starsong; I'm Amy Kendall. I guess you could say I'm in charge here."
"You look a bit young to crew on one of these things."
"I was a passenger."
"Who's he?" The pilots congregated in the centre of the bay, swapping names and ships and stories. I listened, feeling distinctly excluded, while I helped Jesse move corpses. The Raptor was off the Columbia; Sarashiko and someone called Gallow came from the Prometheus. The others came from the Delacourt, the Richmond and the America. All of them had lost their ships; they were all that was left. Seven crew off five ships with over a thousand people each.
I shook that thought aside. "The Raptor's a write-off," I told Jesse. "Those three Vipers are in the best condition, but we'd need to get rid of the computer systems. Those two I can fix by cannibalising others. The rest…" I shrugged.
"Hey!" Sarashiko snapped. He was easily the best-looking and most annoying of the group. "What did you do to my Viper?"
"Tried to fix it," I snapped. "Of course, if you'd rather I just destroyed it we can dismantle it or dump it back into space…"
"That's quite alright," one of them interceded. He was a lieutenant commander, and the senior officer. "I'm Cameron Derrick." Off the Delacourt. "Miss Kendall, what's your guess on when we can fly?" I repeated what I'd just said to Jesse. "The problem is that I'm not a mechanic. I was going to study engineering and I've practically memorised my grandfather's old maintenance manual from when he was a hangar mechanic, but that's all. I simply don't know enough to completely repair anything in the bay."
"Great. And that qualifies you to do that to my ship how?" Sarashiko asked.
"You were unconscious," I pointed out. "What was I supposed to do, leave you floating in space to die?"
"I've heard of you," one of the women said. "He got bounced from ship to ship because he had such a nasty way with words that he pissed everyone off," she confided to me. "If you can put up with him, I'm all for having you around."
"Has my reputation preceded me?" he asked.
"Sure. Both your rep as a great pilot and as the most obnoxious lieutenant in the Fleet. Now, young lady, how long do we have to fix up our Vipers?"
"I don't know," I said truthfully. "Captain Holloway is taking us to evacuate an orbital colony. I don't know where we're going after that. Don't expect any help from the rest of the crew; they're busy working to prepare for the refugees and get everything we can use from that colony on board. We'll be there in a couple of hours. I have no idea what's going to happen to us. I figure just get everything ready as soon as possible. Ah, Cruz and Kambosi, isn't it? Do you know much about Vipers?"
"No," they both admitted. "We've only ever flown Raptors."
"In that case can you see what you can do to turn one of the airlocks into launch corridors? We will get an engineer to help with that. I don't know what we need, but you might."
"Alright. Which way?"
"Out that hatch and down the corridor. Ask for Kumiko. She's got purple hair, you can't miss her." They left quickly. "Which of you is best with computers?"
"I am," Derrick said.
"Can you work with Jesse to see what you can do about the fighters with jammed systems? I don't know where to start. If we can de-network the computers in the Mark 7's you were flying, then they'll be good to go."
"Right. Bracken, you can help."
"Right. That leaves me you three." Sarashiko, Gallow and the woman - what was her name? Yellowstone. "Let's start with this one here. It's mostly a matter of replacing engine parts."
"Where do we get replacement parts from?" Gallow asked.
I gestured around at the scorched twisted remnants of fighter squadrons. "Help yourself. What else are we going to use them for?"
"Charming," Sarashiko said.
"Would you rather be dead?" I asked.
"No, but…"
"Then shut up. Oh, and I should have asked earlier - do you guys have intact communications gear?"
"Yes, why?" Yellowstone asked.
"We picked up some military transmissions but we can't decrypt them. We don't have the codes."
"I'll rig a link through the Raptor. How do I call the bridge?"
"Talk to the switchboard. The Captain's got a secretary-type acting as a buffer. A bunch of the passengers were rich and they've been trying to bend his ear with one complaint or another ever since we got word of the attack."
"Right. I'll get on it. Thanks." I shrugged into my work-gloves. "Any of you guys know how to fix melted rivets?"
"I can," Sarashiko said. "I don't know much maintenance, though."
"Flyboy to the bone, eh?" I said. "You know what they used to call pilots?"
"Nope."
"Airheads."
"That's not true!" He snapped. Gallow hid a smile as he leaped into the cockpit to run a systems check. I realised something - I was glad to have help, but I didn't want to be treated like an ignorant little girl. The best treatment for that problem was not to be an ignorant little girl. I set to work. I was not going to flake out now. I had a job to do.
I realised suddenly that I liked it. It might be frustrating, baffling and done with a sense of desperation, but I liked bringing order to chaos like that.
I remembered something my grandfather had said, that the hardest thing about being a mechanic wasn't repairing the birds, but seeing the pilots take good ones out and bring them back banged up, or not bring them back at all. Funerals without a body, an empty casket, a soulless message to a far-away family. And the hangar mechs would always be wondering if they'd done their job well enough, if the pilots had died because the repairs hadn't been good enough, and then have to go on and do it all over again. An endless cycle of work and repairs and living with loss, and most times all you were doing was plodding along at the same old boring job.
He'd stuck with it for forty-five years. If I gave up now, he'd spin in his grave like an industrial lathe.
I had to give Holloway credit - I wouldn't have thought of putting nets all over the deck to hold things down. I hadn't expected a pleasure yacht to have nets on board. It worked, though; Jesse and I sat outside in the corridor while damaged fighters were shoved inside. Just as we were allowed back in and were running to check out our new finds a furious whirlwind blew in.
"WHAT THE FRAKKING HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING TO MY VIPER YOU IDIOTIC CIVILIAN PIECE OF…" He looked set to bellow all day. I shut the hatch on his rant and headed across the cargo bay floor.
"Gracious sort, isn't he?" I asked Jesse airily. I knew he could hear me, because the hatch had hissed open again. "Are all Fleet so well-brought up, do you think? Or is it acquired in flight training?"
"What?" I don't think he expected that. I'd never been so blatantly rude to a superior before. I'd saved the sharp edge of my tongue for my equals or near-equals in the social sense.
I headed for the lone Raptor in the bay, a large lump of twisted metal. A smear of something had melted over the hatch. Inside two suited figures waved frantically. I waved back and hoisted a cutting torch, making the sign for 'five minutes' with my fingers. "Jesse, check the Viper pilots." Three were getting out on their own now the bay was pressurised, but seven were still. "If they don't have a pulse, dump them with the other bodies." I got to work cutting a new door. It took, as I'd promised, five minutes; that stuff was tough. The entire back end of the Raptor was so much metallic garbage. It would never fly again.
I yanked the hatch open with the manual release. "You two alright?" I asked. "Who are you?"
"I'm Zebra; this is Panther."
"I meant your names." I gave them a hand down. "Welcome aboard the Starsong; I'm Amy Kendall. I guess you could say I'm in charge here."
"You look a bit young to crew on one of these things."
"I was a passenger."
"Who's he?" The pilots congregated in the centre of the bay, swapping names and ships and stories. I listened, feeling distinctly excluded, while I helped Jesse move corpses. The Raptor was off the Columbia; Sarashiko and someone called Gallow came from the Prometheus. The others came from the Delacourt, the Richmond and the America. All of them had lost their ships; they were all that was left. Seven crew off five ships with over a thousand people each.
I shook that thought aside. "The Raptor's a write-off," I told Jesse. "Those three Vipers are in the best condition, but we'd need to get rid of the computer systems. Those two I can fix by cannibalising others. The rest…" I shrugged.
"Hey!" Sarashiko snapped. He was easily the best-looking and most annoying of the group. "What did you do to my Viper?"
"Tried to fix it," I snapped. "Of course, if you'd rather I just destroyed it we can dismantle it or dump it back into space…"
"That's quite alright," one of them interceded. He was a lieutenant commander, and the senior officer. "I'm Cameron Derrick." Off the Delacourt. "Miss Kendall, what's your guess on when we can fly?" I repeated what I'd just said to Jesse. "The problem is that I'm not a mechanic. I was going to study engineering and I've practically memorised my grandfather's old maintenance manual from when he was a hangar mechanic, but that's all. I simply don't know enough to completely repair anything in the bay."
"Great. And that qualifies you to do that to my ship how?" Sarashiko asked.
"You were unconscious," I pointed out. "What was I supposed to do, leave you floating in space to die?"
"I've heard of you," one of the women said. "He got bounced from ship to ship because he had such a nasty way with words that he pissed everyone off," she confided to me. "If you can put up with him, I'm all for having you around."
"Has my reputation preceded me?" he asked.
"Sure. Both your rep as a great pilot and as the most obnoxious lieutenant in the Fleet. Now, young lady, how long do we have to fix up our Vipers?"
"I don't know," I said truthfully. "Captain Holloway is taking us to evacuate an orbital colony. I don't know where we're going after that. Don't expect any help from the rest of the crew; they're busy working to prepare for the refugees and get everything we can use from that colony on board. We'll be there in a couple of hours. I have no idea what's going to happen to us. I figure just get everything ready as soon as possible. Ah, Cruz and Kambosi, isn't it? Do you know much about Vipers?"
"No," they both admitted. "We've only ever flown Raptors."
"In that case can you see what you can do to turn one of the airlocks into launch corridors? We will get an engineer to help with that. I don't know what we need, but you might."
"Alright. Which way?"
"Out that hatch and down the corridor. Ask for Kumiko. She's got purple hair, you can't miss her." They left quickly. "Which of you is best with computers?"
"I am," Derrick said.
"Can you work with Jesse to see what you can do about the fighters with jammed systems? I don't know where to start. If we can de-network the computers in the Mark 7's you were flying, then they'll be good to go."
"Right. Bracken, you can help."
"Right. That leaves me you three." Sarashiko, Gallow and the woman - what was her name? Yellowstone. "Let's start with this one here. It's mostly a matter of replacing engine parts."
"Where do we get replacement parts from?" Gallow asked.
I gestured around at the scorched twisted remnants of fighter squadrons. "Help yourself. What else are we going to use them for?"
"Charming," Sarashiko said.
"Would you rather be dead?" I asked.
"No, but…"
"Then shut up. Oh, and I should have asked earlier - do you guys have intact communications gear?"
"Yes, why?" Yellowstone asked.
"We picked up some military transmissions but we can't decrypt them. We don't have the codes."
"I'll rig a link through the Raptor. How do I call the bridge?"
"Talk to the switchboard. The Captain's got a secretary-type acting as a buffer. A bunch of the passengers were rich and they've been trying to bend his ear with one complaint or another ever since we got word of the attack."
"Right. I'll get on it. Thanks." I shrugged into my work-gloves. "Any of you guys know how to fix melted rivets?"
"I can," Sarashiko said. "I don't know much maintenance, though."
"Flyboy to the bone, eh?" I said. "You know what they used to call pilots?"
"Nope."
"Airheads."
"That's not true!" He snapped. Gallow hid a smile as he leaped into the cockpit to run a systems check. I realised something - I was glad to have help, but I didn't want to be treated like an ignorant little girl. The best treatment for that problem was not to be an ignorant little girl. I set to work. I was not going to flake out now. I had a job to do.
I realised suddenly that I liked it. It might be frustrating, baffling and done with a sense of desperation, but I liked bringing order to chaos like that.
I remembered something my grandfather had said, that the hardest thing about being a mechanic wasn't repairing the birds, but seeing the pilots take good ones out and bring them back banged up, or not bring them back at all. Funerals without a body, an empty casket, a soulless message to a far-away family. And the hangar mechs would always be wondering if they'd done their job well enough, if the pilots had died because the repairs hadn't been good enough, and then have to go on and do it all over again. An endless cycle of work and repairs and living with loss, and most times all you were doing was plodding along at the same old boring job.
He'd stuck with it for forty-five years. If I gave up now, he'd spin in his grave like an industrial lathe.