Far Horizon (Juggernaut #4)

Twenty Two

Nina shuffled in to the mess hall, late and yawning. Malachi and their new friend, Eva Kielser, was already there, along with a fourth person Nina hadn't met yet. Eva saw Nina first and called her over. Malachi hadn't noticed her arrival, he was side-eyeing the other person at their table.

"You should have woken me up," grumbled Nina. "I hate missing breakfast."

"There's still time. I'll get you something," said Eva. She cleared away her empty tray and found a clean one for Nina's food.

"Who's this?" Nina nodded at the other figure. They sat with their head bent so low over a datapad that Nina couldn't learn anything about them except they had brown hair, bad posture, and no comb.

"This is Cameron," said Malachi. "He's my room mate."

One finger poked through the hair as a salute of acknowledgement, possibly as greeting, then retreated.

"He doesn't say much," said Malachi.

"Hi Cameron, I'm Nina."

The finger rose and fell again.

"Or do much," said Malachi.

"I sense that of the two of you, you are the go-getter, Mal?" said Nina.

Malachi, somewhat offended by anyone who didn't want to learn, ignored the question, and slid a datapad across the table.

"Assignments are in. What did you get for first rotation?"

"You didn't look?"

"I didn't want to steal your thunder. Show me."

Nina quickly called up the assignment schedule, then deflated when she saw the result. "Network systems? I wanted something more challenging than that."

"Did you read the assignment brief. It's distributed networking for a satellite grid of the planet below."

"Okay, its more challenging but not sexy. I wanted something like cryptography, or data frame analysis."

"Maybe on your second rotation? You can always petition for an assignment."

"How do you know?"

Malachi flicked another document onto the screen. "Manual."

Of course. If there was a manual, or a guide, or a codex, Malachi would find it and read it.

"What did you get?" Nina asked. "Oh, thank you, Eva," she added as a pressed metal tray of food appeared in front of her.

"Coffee?" said Eva, and gave her a cup.

"Oh, always!" said Nina, gratefully.

"I got jump drives for my first assignment," said Malachi.

Nina chuckled through a slice of toast. "That's going to be useful on a space station with no engines."

"Which space station is that?" said Eva.

"No, it's good. The jump engines don't work on the Brunel. That's why it's a good training ship. It can't go anywhere, it just orbits Chikana. It needs parts fabricated, everything from chips to injectors to structural arrays. I get to build it all."

"Well that's a lot more useful," said Nina. "Congratulations! Eva, what did you get?"

"Jump navigation. There are physical repairs due and the code base needs to be overhauled. Would you believe the system is analogue?"

"Analogue jump navigation? That can't be right. Just how old is this ship?" said Malachi.

"I can help you with the code, if you want," said Nina.