Far Horizon (Juggernaut #4)

Twenty Seven

Nina and Eva entered the rec room together. It had taken each of them several days get get up to speed with their assignments and really understand the work ahead of them. Nina felt confident about her tasks. She was already familiar with networked code and distributed systems. For her it was just a matter of time, but for Eva there were some insurmountable challenges.

"It just doesn't seem fair," she complained. "I came here to learn how to repair and maintain systems just like this, and they give me one that can't be fixed."

"I still don't understand why you can't fabricate something. The Brunel is supposed to be self sufficient."

"Almost self sufficient. Emphasis on the almost. Guess which thing it's not equipped to do?"

"Fabricate a navigation sphere?"

"Well, it is theoretically possible to fabricate one, but they are three metres wide. You would have to dismantle half the ship to get it from the fab bays to navigation. To do that you need a dry dock or an auxiliary support ship, and we don't have either of those."

They found some empty chairs, a challenge in itself between shifts, and sat down. The detritus of an abandoned chess game covered the table. Magnetic pieces sprawled across the chequered table top. Nina absently set up for a new game while they talked. She leaned on her left hand and and moved a pawn on the right of the board forward two spaces.

"So what, exactly, are you supposed to learn repairing a system that can't be repaired? It sounds like a waste of time. You're not learning anything and the Brunel doesn't get any better."

"I asked that same question," said Eva. "They said they understood my frustration, but the Brunel is not an active duty ship, it's a training ship, so it doesn't actually matter if we don't end up with fully working systems. The crew deliberately break things between rotations anyway. The point is to learn how they work and gain the knowledge. At the end of this rotation I'll know the theory of how to make it all work. It's just so unsatisfying to not finish the job."

Eva sighed, and pushed one of her middle pawns forward one space. "Anyway, how is the satellite network? It's something you can actually repair, I hope."

Nina absently slid forward another pawn next to her first.

"Honestly, it's kind of an easy job for me. Once I understood the code base and timing issues they were having, I was able to write new code. I finished it yesterday."

"So soon?"

"There's a planetary science team on board. They want the satellites to scan the surface for something. I can't imagine why. All I see down there is ice. I don't think there's even an ocean under there."

"So what was the problem?"

"No one accounted for atmospheric drag. Or that was the code they deleted. Either way, it's easily fixable."

"Malachi said you were good with code."

"I had an adventurous childhood."

"What's adventurous about sitting behind a computer?"

"The adventures are what got me into trouble. My punishment was supposed to be sitting behind a computer so I would learn something useful. Instead, it opened up a whole new world of trouble."

Eva grinned. "Oh really? How much trouble, exactly?" Using the space created by her pawns, she slid her Queen diagonally to the far left of the board.

"Enough trouble that I had to leave home. How do you think I ended up on the Juggernaut with Mal?"