Short Story: Eye of the Beholder

The last short story I did was a melancholy sci-fi tale where I attempted to keep the protagonist gender neutral and told the story of the aftermath of a losing battle.  It was an incredibly fun exercise, and it was neat to keep the character so open to interpretation.  However, when I eventually have my first book printed, it will be under the guidance of my favorite protagonist type: The Spunky Female. I don’t want to fall into any sort of sexist trope with it, either.  I want a smart and engaging woman who is willing to be assertive and go after their dreams.  Think Ellen Ripley in Aliens.  Strong women more than the equal of their male counterparts, beholden to none but still able to work with any.

Without further ado, today’s entry:

And Erinyth doubted me. I thought smugly as I took the lift down to Dock 19, affectionately called  The Launchpad because it was where all used ships made the journey off-world with their new owners in tow.  Many a famous career had launched from Dock 19, and I knew that mine would be one more story told at the spaceport cantina for generations to come.

What about me makes me think I’m so special?  Well, because I’m the one and only Alynese Badgerton, that’s why.  I learned how to pilot spaceships at the ripe age of three, sitting in my father’s lap as we landed his transport on planet after planet.  And don’t just think it was all for show either, thank you very much.  My dad trusted me with maintaining the levels of thrust, pressure, fuel, and gyroscopic stability as we landed.  Any one of those systems goes critical, and that’s all she wrote for the Badgerton family.

See, not only did I learn how to pilot on the lap of my father, but my other father ran navigation for the ship.  When we would blast off into space, it was up to my Navi-dad (man does he hate that name) to make sure our plotted course through sub-space was clear of any other scheduled transports.  In addition, he had to make sure we had enough fuel to make the journey, that all of our dock papers to and from the spaceports were in order, and that we had received military clearance to run the cargo we were hauling.  He often said that if we didn’t use a governed shipping lane, his job would be much harder.  Then he would have to run quantum algorithmic computations with the ships on-board AI to detect any other ships in sub-space so that we didn’t hit and disintegrate on the spot as we were abruptly shoved out of sub-space.  Navi-dad was very thorough, and he wanted me to have practice, so he taught me how to do the computations even though we didn’t technically “need” them. It was my job as soon as I finished helping Pops pilot out of the spaceport to run the calculations.  Lets just say I got a lot of practice.  

There were other crew on board of course.  Nanny Pey-Lin was my guardian and teacher when I wasn’t in the cockpit (poor Nanny, that was basically never), and it was she who taught me the mundane aspects of life, like how to properly latch a spacesuit or how to make sure I maintained good hygiene.  Let me tell you, when you worked all day on a spaceship, and lived in such close quarters with other men and women doing the same, having a good shower routine is critical to not wanting to kill each other after the first day.  There’s a ton of sweat and grease to go around even on the most unexciting day.

I learned Operational Engineering at the knees of the most gifted engineer of our generation… according to him.  Alfred Baggo, and I am not making that name up, certainly has the ability to match his claim.  Personality wise… I’m not so sure that anyone but Anthony and Harold Badgerton could handle him.  He made an excellent teacher for as long as I could tolerate him, however, and Operational Engineering is the lifeblood of any spacecraft that wants to make it from port A to port B in one piece.  See, space is vast.  As in, infinitely vast.  And there’s not a QuiqZip or Handyman around every corner like there are planet side.  So when something breaks (which is frequently) you have to be able to replace the part with alacrity and exactness.  Enter Alfred Baggo and his 3D manufacturing grid.

Using any old scrap and as much as could be salvaged of the broken part, the laser grid will disassociate the material into it’s most pure form, then reconstruct a new part using any model programmed into it so long as it fit inside the grid.  Break a hydraulic seal for the engine?  Alfred can make you a new one out of the busted parts and some extra scrap in a matter of minutes.  As a third of the ship is taken up by various scrap and the grid itself, it’s safe to say that he is what kept us running through thick and thin.  Even with the AI giving him a boost, watching Alfred work must have been like watching Rembrandt at the easel.  I wasn’t his brightest student, or the most gifted at grid management, but I had nothing pressing to do as a child and a firm tenacity that I would learn all aspects of how to run a spaceship.  Eventually, he let me do the less critical manufacturing for him, and regaled me with tales of all the important things he did or discovered about the grid in his long and storied career.

To be continued…
Justin