Starship Armstrong - Season 3

Part 1 - Armstrong Tour (I)

"Lieutenant Chen," said the man in the grimy Exploration Fleet uniform, holding out his equally grimy hand to shake. "I'm the guy who's been taking care of your baby these past few weeks. Don't worry, we've taken good care of her."

Captain Littlecrow didn't hesitate for a second and shook his hand. Taking her lead Commander Gibson also shook, against his better judgement.

"The Armstrong is a boy," said the Captain, "but I appreciate the sentiment."

"We didn't touch any of the computer hardware," said Chen. "Although I have no idea why on Mars you would want to keep it. You've heard the stories about what's happened with some of these old Magellan's right? I think this one might be literally the last one in operation."

"Thank you but I'm not looking for second opinions in this area," said the Captain.

"Fair enough," said Chen. "Shall I take you on the grand tour?"

"Yes please," said the Captain.

* * *

The first stop was the weapon bays. These were at the edge of the pressurized section of the ship. Long transparent walls overlooked one of the Armstrong's gargantuan primary mass drivers.

The mass drivers were deceptively simple looking: just long metal rectangles. In reality they were still one of the most devastating weapons of mass destruction ever developed. In the wrong hands those rectangles could be destroyers of worlds.

"This thing fought in the Reunification Wars so there's really nothing we could do to upgrade your weapons, but you had been rough on the ones you had. We've cleaned and performed top-to-bottom maintenance on your primary mass drivers, they're good as new. We replaced one of your ion canons that was entirely crogered. The rest we realigned fixed some of the power connections."

"Long story short, your weapons systems are good as new. If you want them to stay good as new you need to take 100% better care of them in the future."

"To be fair," said the Captain "Most of that damage came from other people shooting at us, but I'll make an effort to go easier on the equipment."

"I'm glad you put it that way," said Chen "Because that should be your philosophy going forward. You have been very rough on this ship. I don't want to speak out of turn, Captain, but part of your job as steward of this ship is to take proper care of it."

"No offence taken, Lieutenant," said the Captain "I understand and I agree."

Lieutenant Chen had similar things to say about the shuttle bay. Apparently it looked like someone had deliberately crashed a shuttle into it. Littlecrow didn't admit that that had been her.

The Engineers had also had to reconnect the Science Department back into half the ship's systems. He couldn't begin to imagine how that happened. The Captain didn't bother to comment on that, but she smiled to herself. That would probably set back Dr. Kang a few months.

Lieutenant Chen was particularly upset with how the Relativity Drive had been treated.

"This is a top-of-the-line Relativity Drive," Chen almost whined. "Generation 5. Not every new ship we build gets one of these. You can't possibly be in such a hurry that you need to run it so hot. You're faster than every other ship except the handful that are as fast as you. You need to stick to the normal operational tolerances outside of a genuine emergency. That might have to start with dialing back your definition of what constitutes an emergency."

"I see," said the Captain. She was starting to resent being berated like this.

They pressed on. The Captain was hoping to just get this over with and get this guy off her ship.

Finally they came to the Matter/Antimatter Reactor. It was a colossal, room-sized piece of equipment that made a constant sinister hum when it was operating properly. When it wasn't working properly it and everything around it was instantly annihilated.

"This is very important," explained Lieutenant Chen. "If you only take away one thing from what I've told you today is this: you have to respect the M'am Reactor. That is why we call her 'm'am'. One of your fail-safes was completely knocked out."

"I think that was from getting shot too-" the Captain started.

"It doesn't matter what caused it," said Chen "If that thing goes the whole ship goes. It should not have still been inactive by the time you got here. You brought a ship with a compromised M'am Reactor into Mars orbit. I know you know what antimatter is."

"I'll pass that along to the Engineering team," said the Captain.

"Oh no need," said Chen "I'll tell them myself. Weren't you informed?"

He raised an eyebrow quizzically.

"I'm your new Chief Engineer. Don't worry I'm going to have this place in top shape."

"Is that a fact?" asked the Captain "Lieutenant Chen, thank you very much for the tour and for your hard work on the ship. If you have anything else you need Commander Gibson can assist you. I have an important call I have to make."

Internally cursing herself for not doing a better job of hiding her obvious motive, Littlecrow slunk off to the bridge and then into her connecting office.

* * *

"I have an Engineering team," said Littlecrow. "I'm happy with the people I have. They know the ship."

"Frankly, Alexandria," said Admiral Nguyen, from a small screen on the Captain's desk, "your people are inadequate. There's no one in your Engineering Bay that will say 'no' to you when you want to push the ship too hard. We just spent an inordinate amount of money upgrading that ship of yours. The Armstrong is now one of the most expensive ships in our fleet, believe it or not. I want someone on that ship whose priority is to protect that investment."

"I don't like him," said Littlecrow.

"That was inevitable given his job," said Admiral Nguyen "He's staying."

End: Armstrong Tour