Notes: Thanks to everyone who has reviewed my story so far, I appreciate that you have taken the time to add your comments. For those familiar with the original version of this story, I've trimmed this particular section by about a third as most of it added very little to the storyline. Other chapters have been edited heavily to improve dialogue between characters and the flow of the story, and I've reintroduced small subplot I cut from the original version that works nicely into a story I am planning to write sometime next year. New chapters will be posted as soon as I finished editing them.
With a slight hiss of escaping air, the lift doors opened on deck nine, which looked very different from the huge shuttle bay Susan and her party had just departed. Gone were the piles of crates and barrels and the huge, hulking shapes of the two shuttles and instead she now found herself looking at clean, empty passages heading off in several directions. It was very quiet here, with not even the slightest noise breaking the silence.
She commented on the lack of noise and the Admiral nodded, "Each deck is shielded against noise. We like to ensure everyone gets a good night's sleep. You will find all the crew decks like this one. This deck contains the main crew quarters. Towards the bow, we have quarters for your compliment of marines, while back towards the stern are the quarters for engineering and maintenance staff and the main rec areas. Anyway not much to see here, we might as well head up to the next deck. From here we can take the stairs."
Susan nodded, very impressed by what she had seen so far. Even on Babylon 5, it had always been possible to hear the faint noise of the human traffic outside her quarters. She didn't know about peace yet, but it looked like she was certainly going to be getting some quiet during her time on the Rasputin.
Gregor Petrov walked up alongside her and spoke quietly so only she could hear him. "You think this is impressive Captain, wait until you see the command quarters."
Susan looked over at him, and noticed for once the almost permanent scowl on his face appeared to be gone and he was smiling faintly. Behind her, she heard a faint giggle at his words, indicating that at least Dr Taylor had heard his words. Susan smiled back at him and said, "If they are anything like my quarters back on Babylon 5 Commander I will be very impressed indeed. Hell, as long as I don't have to pay rent on them I'll be happy."
"I think you will be impressed. It looks like they didn't spare any expense building her. I just hope it all works once we get her out of dock and into open space. Still the good doctor is supposed to be coming along with us, so if something goes wrong he will be there to patch it up. That's the theory anyway. I'm a little concerned that command thinks we might need his help. Most ships don't set out on their maiden voyages with their designers still on board. Oh and no you don't have to pay rent, privileges of rank and that sort of thing."
By now, they had reached the next deck but the Admiral didn't stop, instead he turned around and headed straight up the next flight of stairs. Susan turned to Petrov and looked to him for an explanation. He just shrugged and said, "Just more crew quarters, similar to the deck below. Most of the enlisted crew can be found on those two decks, with command staff, gunnery and flight crews on the upper decks. Gunnery towards the stern and the flight crews up front, so they can get to their fighters quickly if needed. Lower decks are reserved for passengers. The Warlock class is designed for a troop support role as well as for fleet command. The one good thing that came out of the Akdor fiasco if you ask me."
Susan nodded, seeing the reasoning behind the placement of the crew quarters. Any further discussion with Petrov had to be put on hold though, as she had now reached the next deck and Admiral Kiernan appeared keen to continue his tour.
"Well what we have here is the main deck," the Admiral was saying. "From here you can reach almost the entire ship." He pointed towards a long passage that seemed to run down the very middle of the deck. "This passage here lead to the fighter bays up front, and engineering towards the rear, as long as you don't mind a bit of a walk. However, as the designers weren't that keen on walking, we installed a fast transport system that can take you from one end of the ship to the other in a fraction of the time. We'll use it to visit the fighter bays in a minute, but first I thought you might like to look at this."
He led the small group along the main corridor towards the bow before stopping outside a set of large pressure-sealed doors on the starboard side of the passage. There was a pass-secured lock in front of the door that the Admiral slipped a card into, before taking a step back as the doors hissed open. Tossing the card to Susan who caught it, despite her surprise, he marched off into the room. Susan quickly pocketed the card and followed him into the room beyond.
Inside, a small collection of junior crewmembers was busy working in what appeared to be a busy command centre. They quickly came to attention and saluted as Kiernan entered the room one of them shouting out, "Admiral on the deck." The Admiral in question quickly waved them back to their posts and went on with his commentary. "This is the ship's computer hub, located about as far away from the hull as you can get. On either side of the central corridor, running about three decks up and down from this location we have the main computer cores that control virtually every system on the ship. You can actually run the entire ship from here if you need to, just in case the main bridge is knocked out."
"Very impressive," Susan commented, trying to ignore the curious stares of her new crew, eager to check out their captain.
"Don't say that until you see the main bridge," Petrov said.
Susan raised her eyebrow at this, but before she could speak, Lt-Commander Alister Schmitt spoke up, "I think you will find it is even more impressive that those fancy Minbari ships you have been flying about in."
"Alister," Gregor looked at the flight commander with a warning scowl.
"It is all right Commander," Susan said, smiling slightly at his protective attitude. "I happen to agree, it took me quite some time to get used to the White Star controls, and of course the crew only spoke in Minbari and I had to use an interpreter most of the time."
"I wished I could have seen one up close," Admiral Kiernan said with a faraway look in his eyes, as he returned to stand by Susan's side. "They looked very impressive flying over Earthdome on ISN. Such beautiful craft, I really would have liked to have one here, so we could take it apart and have a good look inside."
Susan almost laughed at what the Minbari would say about the Kiernan and his researchers tearing apart the ship, but managed to contain her amusement. Instead, she decided to give the Admiral something to look forward too saying, "you might get that chance Admiral. When I left Earthdome, there was some talk about building any new replacements for the Whitestar fleet in Earth construction yards. I don't know if that will come to pass, but it may."
"I don't see what is wrong with Earth designed ships," interrupted Alister Schmitt again. "At least they are Human."
The Admiral burst out laughing at this, Susan and Petrov smiling as well. The rest of the crew, both the rest of the command staff and the junior members on the secondary bridge looked on, wondering what was so funny. The Admiral soon filled them in. "You think this is a Earth designed vessel do you. Scratch off the hull a little and you will find it is as Alien as those White Stars, even more so. You saw that transport ship down below didn't you. Well the hull of the Rasputin is made of the same stuff, and believe me it didn't come from Earth R&D. In fact I don't know where Clark's researchers got it, and frankly I am not in too much of a hurry to find out."
That shut the Lt. Commander up for a while, and taking advantage of the quiet the Admiral led them out of the room and into the transporter that ran down the length of the ship. Once everyone was aboard, he ordered the transporter's computer head forward towards the fighter bays. It did so, sliding quickly and efficiently along its path, and they stepped off into a section of the ship that Susan found very familiar.
It reminded her of the fighter bays on Babylon 5, only a lot more confined. The Admiral quickly pointed out the two sets of drop chutes, one on either side of the main bay, and each holding six Starfurys ready to fly, the rest of the fighters arrayed on trolleys in neat rows ready to be deployed. "We don't actually have any pilots on board yet, you are supposed to get them at Mars, which will be your first stop. As you can see, we've used the standard fighter launch facilities for the Warlock class. You have twelve fighters loaded in quick launch drop shoots, and the rest can launch one at a time via the main airlocks in the bow. We have two forward landing back compared to the single bay on the older destroyers. This change allows for not only quick launches, but a quicker retrieval as well. "
"How many fighters do we carry," Susan asked, curious as she had always enjoyed her time in her Starfury back on Babylon 5.
Alister Schmitt stepped forward, his face showing a little pride now, as well some eagerness to show off his knowledge about his section of the ship. "I can answer that one Captain," he said. "We have four squadrons, the same as on the Omega's, or forty eight fighters all up. The squadron of Starfuries is loaded into the drop chutes at all times, and we have two full squadrons of Thunderbolts, which as you know are replacing most of the older model Starfuries. "
"And the forth squadron," his captain prodded.
Alister grinned, having just spent much of yesterday eagerly examining the new model fighters that the Rasputin carried. "The last squadron are new experimental Lightning class fighters we have been given to test. They are an advanced variant of the Thunderbolt, dedicated two-seaters with a significantly increased payload. They are designed to compliment the Thunderbolts in battle, slower but with heavier weapons and an improved ground-assault capacity. I haven't flown one yet, but I hope to get the chance as soon as possible."
"I am sure you will Lt. Commander," Susan said with a smile, realising the love that Alister had for the fighters. She knew the same feeling, and was almost itching to get her hands on one of the new fighters as well, even though it was not really the captain's place to go flying off in a fighter, as she had told Sheridan several times during her time on Babylon 5.
"We can take a look at the new fighters as we go past," the Admiral said as he continued the tour, leading the small group across the flight deck. It was abandoned now, as none of the flight crew or the pilots were on board yet, all still awaiting the ship at Mars High, the main transfer station for anyone visiting the red planet. For the moment the flight deck was barren and empty, everything still packed away neatly. Susan could already imagine what it would look like once the flight crew took up residence.
Susan smiled as she remembered the Babylon 5 flight deck, with crates of parts scattered everywhere, and holoposters of the latest pin-ups, both male and female, stuck up in the pilot's ready rooms. Compared to the Babylon 5 flight bays the Rasputin's was small, but still impressive, especially with the artificial gravity. It was certainly a lot different from the Agamemnon, which had been the last destroyer she had visited. There the crew had been forced to float around the flight deck in zero-g, and all spare parts and tools were packed away when not in use, as any lose object could be a danger in combat.
The Admiral stopped to allow the Rasputin's new command crew time to examine the new fighters. Susan and the others had a quick look over, Alister ready to jump in and point out all the improvements over the Thunderbolts. The Lightings were stacked carefully along the port side of the flight deck, each secured to a large trolley that carried the shuttles from the landing bays up front, through the air locks and onto the flight deck. The rows of fighters sat quiet and silent in the bay, but all here could imagine what it would be like when operational, with fighter trolleys being rushed across the deck, and the ground crews running everywhere to repair and rearm their assigned fighters.
The Admiral quickly pointed out the rest of the features of the flight deck to Susan, before leading them back to the fast transport system. "Right, come on all, let's get down to the stern and have a look at what makes this ship tick."
Susan looked over at Commander Petrov who was watching the retreating Admiral with a raised eyebrow. He caught Susan watching him and shrugged helplessly. Kiernan certainly wasn't what they usually expected in an Earthforce Admiral, he was likeable for a start. She returned Petrov's shrug with one of her own and they all rushed after the Admiral, who was already in the transporter waiting for them.
As soon as all were inside, the door slid shut and the transport began its almost frictionless glide down the tube to the far end of the ship. It took several seconds of travel to reach engineering, nearly a full thousand metres stern of the flight bays and as the doors slid open again and the Admiral led them out into the spacious engineering section. They were on what appeared to Susan to be the main deck of engineering. Rising up from the centre of the room was a large collection of piping, and cables, which were probably the fuel pipes and power cabling that fed the rest of the ship. This section of the ship was very busy, not empty like the flight deck had been and she could see the engineering staff moving around the various system, checking to make sure they were ready for the Rasputin's departure.
Admiral Kiernan quickly took up his commentary again, sounding more like a tour guide than a fleet Admiral did. "Well here we are in what most consider the heart of the ship, engineering. You see those pressure doors over there; they each lead to one of the reactors, six in total. We are not quite at the stern yet. There are several hundred metres or so of fuel cells and engines out behind us yet. Most of this is Dr. Kozlowski's work, so talk to him if you want an explanation, although if you are like me you won't understand most of what the man is saying."
The Admiral paused to catch his breath before continuing. "Most of the stern though is taken up by the engines, six Z-105 enhanced ion particle thrust engines made for us by Titan Engines Limited. Outwardly they are similar to the latest model Omega engines, but they have been enhanced with the new gravitic technology the Minbari were nice enough to give us. You should notice a significant increase in linear acceleration and turning speed. The Warlock destroyers also have an improved overall power output, roughly three times what the Omega's put out, although much of that is taken up by the AG systems of course."
"How much of the ship does engineering take up," Commander Petrov asked. "I still haven't had a good look around yet. I have been running through crew rosters for the past week."
"Around half," Dr Taylor spoke up from the back of the small group. Petrov looked at her in surprise, as she had only arrived yesterday day from Io, with Dreyer and Schmitt, and as far as he knew had not had time to even see the ship yet. She looked faintly embarrassed for a second at the attention. "I asked Philip Moore last night when he came aboard from the station after meeting the Captain."
"Indeed," the Admiral agreed. "Much the same as the Omega's, around half the ship is devoted to the engines, reactors and fuel cells. There are some crew quarters for the engineering staff back here as well though, just as there are bunks for the flight crews up in the bow. Unlike the older models, where the crew were mainly confined to the rotating habitat section, the new artificial gravity systems have allowed us to scatter the crew quarters across the ship. Basically it means that everyone can get to where they need to be a lot faster."
"Sound like a good idea to me," Susan said. The rest of the command staff quickly agreed with her, at the same time glancing around the massive room that comprised main engineering. Susan realised that although it was nowhere near as large as grey sector on Babylon 5, it was still very impressive. After all this was a warship, not a massive space station. However, any further examination was cut short as Admiral Kiernan guided them back towards the transporter.
By the time they had returned to the centre of the warship, Philip Moore was waiting for them. He smiled and said, "looks like I finally caught up with you." He then turned to the Admiral. "Roger, Kozlowski said he wanted to speak with you about work on the third destroyer while he is away. I can guide the captain around the rest of the ship if you like."
The Admiral nodded. "All right Philip, I will go and see what he wants now. I will see you all in the shuttle bay shortly. Lt. Commander Moore here knows most of the ship better than me though, and has worked on it for nearly two years now, so I will leave you in his capable hands."
He executed a quick salute, which the Captain and her crew returned and then he entered the lift, leaving them with the chief engineer. Philip went over to the rest of his new shipmates. "Well what do you think of the Admiral quite the character when he has had a little too much champagne isn't he."
"Yes," Susan agreed. "He certainly is somewhat ... eccentric."
Philip laughed at that, a couple of the others also joining in. "That's probably why he got this command. Apparently, Earth Central didn't really like the way he ran things so to get rid of him they posted him out here to Neptune-Beta. Even with the jumpgate, it is a remote posting, but he has been good for the project and made sure all the resources he could muster were sent here. I am not sure if Earthdome realises exactly how much has been spent on this project yet. When they do they will probably want to shut us down, these ships are not cheap to make, even considering we grow the hulls from silicon rather than shipping in armour plating."
Vincent Dreyer was a little surprised by the mention of growing the hull and asked, "What do you mean by that. How can you grow a hull?"
Philip looked at the gunnery officer. "Well we use a new organic compound that we grow over on one of the construction platforms. I don't think you can see it from here, but it is over past the prototype Warlock. The hull is effectively a silicon-based life form that feeds off electrical energy or sunlight. If you saw the Warlock earlier you would have seen what it looked like, the entire hull of that ship is made of the stuff. It works quite well actually, and provides much better protection than the old hull plating. When struck by energy based weapons, this new plating distributes the energy across a whole section of the hull, instead of just where weapon strikes. It makes it a lot harder to penetrate, reducing the damage potential of most low yield weapons considerably."
"Perhaps you can show us the rest of the ship now," Susan said, a strange tone in her voice. Philip looked at carefully for a moment before agreeing, remembering the discussion he had with the Captain the previous evening.
"Of course Captain, there is plenty of time to talk about the ship's design later. What has the Admiral shown you so far?"
Susan quickly listed all the sections of the ship they had seen so far. "The fighter bays, the computer core, and main engineering."
Phillip paused near the lift for a moment, obviously considering where to lead the small party. Finally, he point down the passage leading towards the stern. "The ship's Medlab is located just down that corridor, nice and close to the main lifts. We have tried to equip it with all the latest equipment, but you know how things are these days, they are always developing something new. Amanda, I believe you have had a good look over it?"
The blonde doctor nodded at his question. "I spent several hours there last night while we were all trapped up here. I had a good look around, and everything seems to be up to date. It is a lot better than what we had my old ship anyway."
"Glad to hear it. Anyway, apart from the computer core, Medlab is probably the only important facility on these decks, the rest is set aside for crew quarters, the galley, recreation facilities and the like. You might want to all spend some time getting used to the new layout, as it does differ significantly when compared to the older model destroyers. We might as well head up to the main bridge and the command quarters. Most of you would have already seen yours, but the Captain hasn't yet."
"And if you don't like them Captain you can always swap with me." Amanda Taylor joked. "We had a quick look last night, and lets just say that they are treating you very well indeed, not that there is anything wrong with ours of course."
Philip laughed. "No nothing wrong with them at all, the designers have really spared no expense or space for the command crew, one of the legacies of the Clark regime. I imagine changes will be made to latter production models, but you are all lucky enough to get the full luxury treatment."
"I guess I should feel honoured then," Susan said.
"We all should," said Alister Schmitt with a pointed glance at his Captain. "After all this is the new flagship, and only the best are getting to serve on her."
"Well we will see how things turn out," Commander Petrov said softly. "I have had a look at the crew lists and we look like getting some of the very best, especially the ace pilots coming on board to test those new fighters. I will show you the list later, but I think the Captain might like to have a look at her bridge first."
"Good idea," agreed Philip. "This way everyone."
He led them into the lift, ordering it up to the command deck. Once there he pointed out a door to Susan. "That way leads to your office, and then onto your quarters. Your quarters are the only one located on this level, the rest of the command crew's room are on the level directly below. We are close to the top of the ship, but the hull is reinforced along this entire section and we are directly beneath the main interceptor batteries, so this is actually one of the best protected sections on the whole ship."
Philip then led them down a corridor that curved towards the starboard side of the ship. Susan also noticed a similar passage that went the towards the port side. Soon, he stopped outside a large set of pressure doors and inserted his passcard into the reader. The doors slid open and exposed the large bridge area. It was empty for the moment, with all those who would normally be here either busy elsewhere or gathered around her and Philip. The bridge was large, even larger than C&C on Babylon 5. There was a raised platform in the centre, which she guessed must be the commanding officers station. A padded chair and two semi-circular computer consoles sat on it, right in the middle of the bridge. On the far side of the bridge was another door, which Susan guessed led to the other passage she had noticed earlier. The platform with the commander's chair also led across to this door, while stairs on either side of each door allowed access to the lower pits where all the main computers and consoles were fixed into the floor.
Philip move down into the stern facing pit and quickly tapped a few commands out on a fairly standard looking keyboard set into one of the consoles. Then he looked up at Susan who had gone to examine the Captain's station. "Well, here we have the bridge, designed with all the latest systems to keep this ship running smoothly. Everything, including all the turret weapons can be run from here if necessary, although obviously each section is also capable of operating independent of each other to ensure maximum survivability in combat. Standard bridge crew is twelve, plus the Captain, or who ever is in command at the time."
Philip paused and looked at Alister Schmitt and Vincent Dreyer who were busy examining one of the consoles. "You two might be more interested in the systems over the other side, that is where weapons and fighter tactical are. Of course you don't have to be here all the time, but you will find that those stations best allow you to keep an eye on everything at once."
He looked up at the Captain a slightly devious grin on his face. "What do you think so far Captain."
Susan slowly sat down in her chair to get a feel for her new station. It quickly moulded itself to her body and felt very comfortable. She looked up at the chief engineer and returned his grin. "Very nice, I think I could really get used to this."
Philip's grin grew even wider as he said, "well you might like this then, a little something R&D has come up with. It is going to be standard soon, but for now this is one of only two ships that have it.
He turned away for a second and tapped a final key on console beside him. Above, the ceiling suddenly flared with light as what had appeared to be normal black tiles disappeared and they were quickly replaced by a view of the space around the ship. The outside of the ship, the research station, and even a shuttle traversing the space between the two were all now displayed by a massive holographic display.
Philip moved up the stairs to stand by the Captain while they all looked on amazed. "Something special isn't it," he said.
"Amazing," Susan said, her breath taken away by the magnificent sight. "Where the hell did you get this, it is even better than the Minbari system.
"They pulled it out of the wreckage of a Centauri battle cruiser a couple of years back. The very same one that was knocked out by the defence grid on Babylon 5, at your Captain's orders I should add. Apparently the Centauri were not interested in cleaning up or salvaging the wreckage, so our R&D boys went and took a look and managed to piece together several of the systems from the cruiser's bridge. We would have loved to salvage their engines, but the systems we took from the bridge still helped us significantly and eventually gave us this new display. If there is one thing the Centauri make well it is their holographic systems. They apparently used holos on their bridge to show space around their vessel, and we managed to copy the main holographic projection system."
"How does it work," Alister asked, amazed at the detail of the image they were looking at.
Philip tapped out a couple of commands on the Captain's console and altered the view, this time showing the region of space beneath the Rasputin. Their view almost seemed to come from that bay itself, and the detail was quite amazing.
Philip smiled at the way everyone was staring and said. "Well it is a lot easier than it looks. I am surprised they didn't come up with something like this before. I don't know if any of you have seen the Centauri holographic systems before, but they can create free standing images with almost no flickering at all, all with a small device no bigger than your links. They are considerably more advanced than our current systems that require one of those players that are all the rage back home. Earth technology is getting better, but I don't think it will catch up with the Centauri for a while, at least not civilian technology."
He paused for a moment to catch his breath before continuing. "Well we use a copy of their holo projectors, mounted into the ceiling above you and all linked to a central computer that keeps them aligned. Then along the hull we have put in a series of cameras, those new wide angle ones that ISN and the other vid networks are starting to use. You have probably seen something similar on some of the more modern stations, Babylon 5 for example."
He looked at Susan as he said this and she nodded. "Yes we had them on B5, although there they were only linked to the display screens, we didn't have anything like this."
Philip continued. "Well what we have done is link all the cameras into the computer running this display and it filters the images correctly and allows it to appear as though you were standing on the hull looking out. It works fairly well, you can even zoom in on different locations, although that is a little limited as it can only display what the cameras can see."
"Why bother though," Petrov asked. "The old display boards did much the same job."
Philip shrugged at his comments. "Something to do with crew behaviour I was told. I heard the system's designer saying that a study had determined that a warship's crew would work better if they could actually see their opponents. I quite like it really, you can overlay the display with almost anything you like as well, and so if there is an enemy ship on screen the tracking computer can display information about it. It everything together for you to see at once, and makes it a little easier to keep an eye on things."
On the screen they could see the shuttle approaching fire it braking thrusters and begin to slow, ready to dock with the Rasputin. Susan saw this and commented on it, "I guess that must be the shuttle bring the ISN crew aboard."
The others turned watch as its thrusters fired, slowing it down ready to dock with the destroyer. Philip nodded, "yes that is the Admiral's personal shuttle, he must have sent it to collect them. Well, we had best get going then. The rest of you might like to head down to the hanger bay, the Admiral wants to have another little ceremony and introduce you all to the crew. Captain, I will just give you a quick look at your quarters and we shall join them."
Susan nodded and they all filed out of the bridge, most of them heading towards the lifts to the lower floors, while Susan and Philip continued on past the lifts and went though the door leading into her quarters. The first room they came to was her office, looking somewhat spartan with only an unadorned desk and four chairs taking up space. Beyond the office was another door, the one leading in her personal quarters. She stood waiting for him to open it, before remembering that Admiral Kiernan had tossed her the passcard before. Slightly embarrassed she slid the card into the lock and the door slide open, smoothly and without a sound. Stepping inside, Susan walked around the packing crates on the floor, the same ones she had bought with her from Babylon 5, as well as the package John Sheridan had sent her and had her first glimpse at what was to be her new home, at least for the next year or so.
It was a lot bigger than her old quarters on Babylon 5, even larger than John's, with five rooms instead of the three she had been content with back on Babylon 5. The first of these was the lounge room and like her office, it had been left unadorned with only basic furniture. Then in the walls of the lounge room there were three sliding doors, much like those in her old quarters. One led into a storeroom, which was completely empty, while the next led into a small kitchen and bar, and last into a spacious bedroom. She moved through into the bedroom and took note of another door, which likely led in the bathroom cubicle.
Philip moved into the room after her. "Well do you like it Captain," he asked.
"It is certainly larger than I expected," she replied, examining the bed with a somewhat suspicious eye, wondering for what purpose the designers had put in such a large one. "I thought space would be limited on a warship, but this is even better than my quarters on Babylon 5."
Philip laughed. "Not bad are they. All of the command quarters are impressive, I guess they are one of the good things to come out of Clark's rule."
"How do you mean?"
"Well these vessels were designed for those officers still loyal to Clark, so he order extra space be made available for command staff, and this is the result. We even have real water showers up here, and extra large water tanks down on deck eight to keep them running. Ah, and have a look at this, this is one of the best improvements of all."
He crossed to the far end of the bedroom and pressed a small control almost hidden on the wall. Suddenly the entire section of the wall over the bed became opaque, allowing a view down across the front of ship, all the way to the bow. Lights from the construction platform all around them played off the silver hull of the warship and for a moment Susan was caught by the beauty of the view.
"How do they do this?" she asked.
Philip pressed the control again and view of the front section of the warship faded. "A similar system to the one on the bridge, only with a lot less power. All of the cabins that border the sides of the ship have these, even the on the crew deck below. They are linked into a single camera for each, set into the hull plating outside. Then you have a low power holo display set into the wall here. The whole thing uses less power than most vid systems, and we do carry replacement cameras in case the hull is damaged."
"It looks great," Susan said. "I trust though no-one can look in from the outside."
Philip laughed at that, and even the normally dour, and slightly sad looking Captain smiled, his friendly nature finally getting the better of her. "Don't worry Captain," he said with a wink. "It is all strictly one way only."
"Good," she said firmly, before walking across the room to have a quick look into her shower.
"How many crew members have quarters on the deck below," she asked as she came back into the bedroom where Philip was waiting.
"Just the command staff and a couple of guest rooms. Counting your quarters there are nine in total, the rest of the room on these two decks is taken up by the bridge, the computer rooms, officer's mess, and the rest of the command facilities."
Susan bent down to glance under the bed, noticing that there were drawers of some kind built down there. "Wouldn't that make it more of a target though?"
The engineer shook his head. "I wouldn't worry about that. Not only would the attack have to be familiar with the layout of the ship to know where to hit, but also this section of the vessel has a hull twice as thick as on the rest of the ship.
"Well it makes me feel a little bit safer," Susan said, looking at her crates, not really looking forward to unpacking them.
"It is supposed to," Philip said, checking his link to see what the time was. "We should get going anyway, the Admiral might be wondering what is keeping us."
"Lead on chief," she said, inviting him to leave first. He took up the invitation and left her quarters, Susan in close pursuit. Pausing at the doorway, she looked back for a moment, already thinking about what she could do to bring some warmth to the room. This on her mind she turned away from her door and followed Philip out of the Captain's office and towards the lift.
As she walked out of her quarter, she realised that much of her apprehension about taking command was gone, and she wasn't even concerned about the ISN crew any more, although the Shadow technology that appeared to be hidden throughout her vessel still bothered her. She knew at that moment that her decision to leave Babylon 5 was the right one. Now she had her new life, a new crew, and possibly even new friends and with any luck the bad memories she had from her time of Babylon 5 would fade and she would have only the good to remember from her time there. Straightening her uniform, Susan allowed a slight spring come into her walk as she entered the lift to the lower decks.