Ashes Snippet 2

 Sitrep: So far not much headway on the animation, I'm waiting on feedback.

In other news I've made some minor progress with Searching for a Needle, and The Long Road Home.

   Searching for a Needle is book 1 of Pirate Hunt, the next Irons series. I'm in the blocking phase now. It will be in parallel to Diplomacy, Parabellum, The Pi Effect, and the Long Road Home. (It is the anchor line in other words)

  The Long Road Home is the next much anticipated Jethro Goes to War book. I had intended to write it first but I only had enough material for a very short (Very very short) short story... up until this morning. Pieces started to fall into place and I rolled out of bed and did some blocking. Hopefully it makes sense to my now caffeine invigorated brain. :)

 I am also debating on moving Academy to the short story anthology books. I had it blocked out years ago but never got around to writing it. You can see pieces of it in a few books. I threw people out there but then never got around to filling them in after that. Academy getting shelved is why. (that and I forgot them)

Anyway, on to the snippet!

  Whelp, I nearly had a heart attack! I went to grab the snippet and found out I'd put it in the wrong folder... and moved the file there. I thought I'd accidentally deleted Horatio 4! Whew! Glad I've got backups! That could have been messy!

Titan

 

Cast:

Captain SG Unicron: A.I. of Unicron. Ship A.I. As senior ranking officer acting captain after captain and flag officers killed in battle.

Commander Ozzie Bankole: Male Neogorilla. XO of the ship. Former TO of Battle Planet Colussus. Family man as a silverback with his own troop.

Commander Tornedron: A.I. Male. Resents being passed over for promotion and relegated to being under the thumb of organics. TO of the ship.

Lieutenant Commander Maev Hannibal: Chief engineer.

Governor Carrie Urban

Arblus: Technician on Lithone.

Lieutenant Kranix: A.I. Army. Retired to Lithone.

 

In hyperpace, Epsilon Sector

 

Lieutenant Commander Maev Hannibal, acting chief engineer stared at the inventory. It was better known for what was missing than what was left.

She was normally a glass half full sort of lady. Get her part of the way through a problem and she would take it the rest of the way. Engineers were problem solvers; they loved to get the job done and make a “miracle.” She had a motto etched on a plaque. “The difficult is done at once. The impossible takes a little longer.” She loved it and taught it to her crew. They had a reputation after all.

But damn. The war was grinding them down. Loosing half of their department hadn't helped.

She looked at the list again. The battle damage had been extensive. They had lost Unicron's internal yard, her nay, his small craft production center, the various subassembly lines, and a good chunk of their stores. Most of their magazines had been shot dry.

In other words, they were in a shot-up battle planet that had only his energy weapons left and not much industrial capacity at all. Oh, their molecular furnaces worked but so what? She shook her head in annoyance.

She looked down the list with the red lines. Nothing really jumped out at her. She finally grimaced and shook her head. “Okay let's take this from another view. What do we have left?” she asked. She had damage control parties still sorting out the wreckage. They were supposed to set aside anything that might be repairable. So far that list was depressingly small. Somehow she had to rebuild the ship with what?

Her eyes scanned down the list. She had about twenty industrial replicators left, all class 2. None were larger than three cubic meters. That sort of build volume sharply limited her options. And then there was the other big problem, the lack of keys.

She made a puttering sound and then dug into the list to see what she could do with what she had left. Some progress was better than none she reminded herself.

~@~

Commander Ozzie Bankole snorted, large nostrils dilating for a brief moment before he gave in and rubbed against the corner. No one was around, and even if they were, he didn't give a shit at the moment. Whoever thought it was a good idea to give primates the same nudity taboo as humans should have been given itching powder in every damn outfit they ever wore.

The corner wasn't quite sharp enough to get the itch completely, but it did give his back a warm friction burn after a few minutes. “Are you quite finished marking your territory, Commander?” a familiar bass voice asked.

“Just about. I hate having an itch I can't scratch,” The Neogorilla growled. He rolled his shoulders. “Can I help you, Captain?” he asked as he adjusted his uniform.

He was still feeling out his relationship with Captain Senior Grade Unicron. Unicron was the acting captain as he was the acting XO. He'd come off of Colussus so he had experience handling a ship so large. What he didn't have experience with was having an A.I. for a boss and being essentially screwed, blued, and tattooed as his father used to pithily say.

“There are some problems with some of the passengers. They also keep thinking I'm some dumb waiter. Remind them of their status,” the A.I. growled. The Neogorilla hid a grimace but nodded dutifully. “I also called for a senior staff meeting this evening.”

“Yes, sir. Can I ask what about?”

“What else?” the A.I. asked. “The repair status. We're not making much progress, and I expect that to change right away or heads will roll.”

“Yes, sir. I'll pass that along.”

“You do that, Commander,” the A.I. said tartly and then the voice clicked.

The Neogorilla knew better than to say something about his boss. The A.I. was watching at all times even if he seemed to be busy doing other things.

He shook his head as he pulled up a list of passengers. It would have been helpful if the captain had told him who specifically was treating him like a bot but apparently not. He checked the culprits he did know about. Most were settling down so he decided to have a chat with them.

As he wrote a list and then began to ping their locations in the ship, he plotted a route to hit each and a few stops along the way. The ship was the size of a planet; there was no way any officer could do a walkabout in her in their lifetime. Officers had to trust the equipment and their people.

Trust but verify Ozzie his errant mind thought before he brushed the thought away in irritation.

Once he had a map, he started in on it as he checked in with the status of the various departments. There were constant complaints from tactical, no surprise there. All they had left were their shields and energy weapons. Half of their energy weapons he reminded himself.

“Maev,” he said, calling the chief.

“Yes, Commander?” a familiar voice asked tiredly. Her image appeared in a window on his HUD a moment later. She was apparently near a camera since it was a live feed. “I am assuming you are looking for a status report for our lord and master?” she asked flippantly.

He scowled. “Maev,” he said in a darker tone of voice.

“Sorry. Tired. What gives?”

“As it happens, yes, I was asked to look into things. We have a senior officer meeting this evening.” He realized the captain hadn't given him a time. Rather than ping him he decided to shoot from the hip. “Seventeen hundred. Understood?”

“Sure.”

“In person.”

She grimaced but then nodded. “I'll be there. Where are you off to?”

“I need to remind some of the passengers to behave again.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Don't we have people for that? And shouldn't you just call them?”

“Sometimes it's best to make the proper impression in person,” he said gruffly.

She nodded.

“But you are right. We need a purser or quartermaster. Candidates?” he asked.

“A bean counter would be good. I don't have any off the top of my head. Definitely none I can spare. I do have …,” she frowned. “I know some of the departments didn't get too badly chewed up when we lost most of our stores. There might be one or two people left.”

“I'll look into it.”

“Okay. Anything else?”

“Where are we with repairs?”

“Trying to make bricks without straw tends to be an impossible task. We're making headway, but it's not much. Probably why we're going to get chewed out.”

He grimaced as he got into a lift. “Possibly. Any way to accelerate repairs?”

“Not without a yard or at least a mobile shipyard or tender. Or a couple dozen of them but they seem to be in short supply at the moment,” she said dryly. “I've got a couple of class 2 industrial replicators, and that's about it. Which, given the list of repairs,” she waved a tablet, “is like trying to bail an ocean with a teaspoon.”

“Well, every little bit helps. Keep on it. Think outside the box.”

“I am. We lost a lot of supplies. The scrap will only get us so far. We need to stop somewhere that has supplies and restock.”

“Ah. I'll pass that on or you can bring it up at the meeting. Out.”

“Out,” she said as the signal disconnected.

~@~