Praxis

2217

26 years earlier

The crippled boy tried to be motionless in the shadows, but couldn't help shivering in the cold. He wanted to be sure the alleyway was deserted before venturing out into what passed for the light of day here. If any of the older boys found him here (or, for that matter, anywhere), he would have a very bad day. He stared at the doors of the shop that stood so invitingly ajar, and he knew how warm it would be inside. He looked both ways and saw nothing and decided to take a chance. He bolted from the shadows and ran as fast as he could towards the safety of the shop.

"Ran" was probably wishful thinking. "Hobbled like a crippled crab" was way more of an accurate description. He loped along with his awkward gait, bobbing from side to side, easy prey for anything or anyone that wished to be a predator. He had been born a cripple, with one leg a stunted, twisted shadow of the other. He had never been able to run, climb, or, most importantly, fight as the other boys his age could. His father was an honorable man and a brave warrior. He had sired three fine, strong sons and had always tried to be kind to his crippled boy, but Jorn had seen the disdain flicker in his eyes, and in those of his brothers. They had eventually found it convenient for all to forget he really existed. He was fed and clothed and housed, and that was all. He had no friends, of course, as no one wanted to be cast in the shadow of his shame. His only companion lay beyond the open doors of the shop. He did not know it yet, but salvation lay there as well.

He stumbled into the darkness of the shop, and then the orange glow welcomed him in, as it always did. He could feel the heat of the forge long before he got near it, and breathed a sigh of relief. He slowed to a stop, and a grating rasp of a voice spoke out of the dark.

"Do ya think I have all day, boy?"

"Yes, old man-I think you do. We both know that, don't we?"

"That we do, boy, that we do. Can you hand me whatever they brought me today and shut your yap?"

"Depends. What's it worth to you, old man?"

He walked slowly to a stout wooden table near the open doors. The table was a six-inch thick slab of solid wood with legs as big around as small tree trunks. Its surface was scarred and pitted with decades of hard use, and oil and grease stains from ages past were forever ingrained in the wood. An assortment of dark and strange metallic objects was scattered on top of it. Jorn grabbed the closest one and grunted with the effort of picking it up. He struggled awkwardly to the place where the old man sat in the half darkness. He carefully set the item on an old cut down oil drum that sat at the old man's feet.

Jorn hated the way he knew looked when he walked, and when he ran it was even worse. Lugging the heavy items around the shop, he looked even more ridiculous, but it was never a problem here. That's why he loved it here; the old man never laughed or made fun of him.

"It's worth me not cuttin' your insolent head of your shoulders, and if I were you, I'd take the deal."

The old man's gnarled and scarred hands gently caressed the item before him. "T-16 drill bit, an old one, made before they started using that alloy crap. Is there a note with this one? Wait; never mind; I found it." His ancient fingers caressed the threads of the huge bit, and he felt the almost imperceptible ridges of the burr, a tiny curl of an imperfection worn into the metal.

"Bring me the big external tapspinner-the blue one with the white stripe." Groaning, Jorn did as he was asked. The tool was heavier that the bit had been. He helped the old man clamp it around the bit's threads, fit the handles, and begin the slow, back and forth motion that got easier as the damaged section was worked smooth again. The old man sprinkled a bit of powdered graphite into the threads and it grew smoother still. Finally, he removed the tool and gently rubbed the threads with an ancient oilcloth until they shone in the glow of the forge.

"Next one, boy, and be quick about it."

The boy had been coming here for a long time. The old man had once been a senior machinist in the engine room of a D-5 class battlecruiser. He had been a legendary metalsmith and engineer and had once served aboard the chancellor's flagship-a great honor indeed. His engineering spaces were always spotless, his lathes and metalworking equipment oiled and sharpened to perfection. That all ended when a plasma conduit exploded in his face. He had been attempting a to repair a battle damaged shield generator and remembered a blinding (literally) flash, then a searing, scalding pain in his face. There were no eyes left to repair when his crewmates dragged him to the medical bay, and he lingered for three days before they decided he may live after all, and began treating his injuries. They put what was left of his face back together as best they could.

There was no berth in the fleet for a blind engineer, and he was unceremoniously shipped off with a sliver of a veteran's pension to the mining colonies of Praxis. The moon was a dark, cold, and dismal place, but the darkness did not, of course, bother him in the least. He used years of unspent military wages to purchase an ancient machine shop, and he managed to scrape a meager living by repairing the tools of the mining trade. At the end of every shift, the miners brought him their bent and broken tools, drill bits, engine parts, and everything else that went into the mines that needed repair.

Blind as he was, his hands remembered a lifetime of work, and his blindness made his hands hypersensitive. The tiniest flaw or crack could not escape his ancient touch, and the miners regarded his skills with as much awe as respect. Miners were not generally wealthy men, but they worked hard, and he respected that. They paid what they could, which wasn't much, but it wasn't always currency they paid with. Sometimes a steaming pot of soup, or a warm bottle of bloodwine, or occasionally fuel for the forge. It didn't really matter. In his own way, he still served the empire, and it was enough.

The boy had come to him a tiny, lurching, frightened thing, fleeing the bigger boys who made him their sport. One day he heard panicked breathing and a step/drag/step noise burst into his shop. Most children were afraid of the ruin of his face, but this boy was more afraid of the terrors outside than of a scarred old man. The boy had been hesitant but curious, and they soon established an unspoken bargain: the boy's eyes, hands, and legs for the old man's stories and the safety of the shop.

Jorn had been coming here for years, and though he wasn't quite aware of it, he had developed some serious musculature from working with the heavy tools and equipment in the shop. His leg may have been a twisted, feeble thing, but his arms were thickly corded and he could easily lift his own weight. His chest was wide, and he lifted great lengths of pipe with ease. He had learned to use the tools in the shop and was adept at the forge, the welder, and the plasma cutter.

As the boy dragged away a large pump housing, the old man sipped from a piping hot battered metal cup of tea. It was piping hot because he kept the cup on the edge of the forge. The forge was everything to him: his stove, his coffeepot, his heater, his clothing dryer, and his livelihood.

The last thing the boy did before leaving at night was to stoke the forge for the night. Its warmth would last through the night and into the early morning with ease. When the day's work was done, the blind man and the crippled boy sat before the forge and had their meager supper together. The boy brought him whatever he needed as he sat with his sightless eyes staring into the glow of the forge. After their meal was complete, the boy sat silently beside him, and at some point the old man would clear his throat and the stories would begin.

"I remember once…"

The old man filled Jorn's head with stories of brave warriors in furious battles, of shattered ships and broken warriors, of screams of agony and of triumph. The sagas of Kahless the Unforgettable and his incredible conquests, the tales of the Black Fleet sailing forever in eternal darkness, and a hundred more.

Jorn was spellbound by all this, and he soaked it up like a sponge. He read all he could about ships and engines and weapons systems. The old man would give him an imaginary engineering problem and have Jorn mentally go through the necessary troubleshooting steps to resolve the issue. He began to develop the ability to visualize systems in his mind and how they interacted with each other: electrical, hydraulics, pneumatics, plasma fields. He didn't know it at the time, but this was a trait that all the truly great engineers possessed. It was a priceless gift and a terrible curse at the same time.

A fleet engineer's life was spent in steaming hot engine rooms with ear-shattering noise and endless hours of thankless toil. No one wrote stories about brave engineers or sang songs of glorious battlefield repairs. Nonetheless, it was service to the empire. Kahless was a legend, but his battlecruiser was useless without her engineering crew, and it was through their tireless work that he sailed into an everlasting and glorious history.

Jorn was 17 years old when he walked into the shop to find the forge had cooled and the old man had slept a sleep that was now an eternal one. He had died warm by his forge with a full belly, his tea still warm beside him. Jorn drank the tea as he wept, kissed the old man gently on the top of his head, and walked away. He took the battered metal cup; he could not bear to think of it never being warm again.