Chapter 18: A bit of programming

-- February - Week 5 --

Lee found out at the team meeting that they had a new member on the team, Terry Ore.

Captain Clark had turned up with him in tow. “Ah Lee, this is Terry Ore,” he introduced them, even though they already knew each other.

“Terry, as well as being a transporter pilot, also has Drive Engine experience. He would like him to take over these responsibilities until Rodger is capable of returning to duty. Ben, Isha and I decided it was better to leave Isha on Shift Two.”

“He is doing an excellent job in his new position. We thought that you could keep an eye on Terry while he learns how you like things done. Actually, Isha recommended Terry and Ben and I agreed. Will this be a problem?”

“Not at all. I have plenty to do without doing two jobs at once.” Lee answered. Wondering why neither Sean nor Terry had said anything to her earlier at dinner.

“Ah yes, about having two jobs,” Nick said, clearing his throat. “I have had a request that you be the one to re-program the compensators. Kyle said he could do it, but we need him for other work.”

“He believes that you can probably do a better job because you understand how they work better than he does, and Ian agreed with him after Kyle told him what you recommended.”

He looked at her surprised face and barrelled on, “Isha was able to cover your Drive maintenance schedule for the night. Unless it is life-threatening, I have asked Helm not to bother you with silly requests for light globs or other things this morning.”

“Mik covered the electrical maintenance. He has also agreed to be woken to cover for you if required. Rolo has said he would pick-up any other problems when he comes on. Is this acceptable?”

Lee nodded that it was.

A relieved Captain Clark continued, “Because the drives sent us off course, we are not entering the system in the corridor that was plotted. Professor Veselovsky and several others are worried that we may run into trouble if we do a direct jump at this point. Nicko believes we may jump into the planetary plate if you know what the means?”

Lee nodded that she did. So, he continued, “We have already started slowing the ship for the shorter jumps. They wish to do two jumps, one about 1.7c down at about 1.5 degrees to our current line of flight, so we are under the plate. Then another jump up of about the same distance.”

“They believe this will put us in a much better position to survey the system. We should only be about half a light-year away. We will have plenty of time to slow to micro-jump speeds since we have already dropped speed significantly.”

Lee answered, “That makes perfect sense me and is definitely more prudent and safer.”

“I agree,” nodded the Captain. “That was the reason for the meeting you joined yesterday afternoon.”

“I’m sorry, Captain, I didn’t mean to crash the meeting,” said Lee, worried.

“Ha,” he laughed. “I understand far from crashing it you were asked to join and provided the very solution to the problems they were pondering.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand?” she asked bemused.

He counted off one finger, “We have five of the crew in sickbay. Two of whom had to have operations to fix the results of their accidents. We have another fifteen walking-wounded with strains and sprains, and I don’t know how many with bruises and cuts.”

He counted off the second finger, “Hydroponics has been run off their feet, trying to find better ways to stop the plants from being damaged. The last two jumps have been worse than the first two as far as they are concerned, and I concur.”

He counted off the third finger, “The kitchen staff have been running ragged too. Having to get everything out to cook then get it all put away again takes time and effort.”

He counted off the fourth finger, “At least half of the scientists have been bitching about their experiments being interrupted or ruined. Obviously, half the idiots have set up experiments that don’t work well after they are slammed into the benches a couple of times.”

Lee had to smile and found the Captain was trying not to grin as well. The rest of the avidly listening team were smirking or giggling too.

Nick drew himself up and went serious again, “So the navigation team was trying to find a way to convince everyone else that we had to do another two jumps. If we could only do one, where was it was going to be to?”

“They also had the problem of once we are in the system. We planned to jump at least once if not twice a week until we got to Delta3. They knew we would end up with a lot of cranky people aboard by the time we got there,” he looked at her as if waiting for a response.

“So, if I can get the compensators to stop thrashing the hell out of us, I make everyone happy,” Lee concluded.

The Captain nodded happily, “Very astute Lee, you will be the heroine of the week.”

“Ha, what’s new about that?” said Jim. “She is our heroine every day.”

Lee raised her eyes at Jim and put her finger down her throat, in a gagging motion, and the crew laughed.

Then Terry had to add his two cents worth, “Her boyfriend calls her the ‘Red Lady of the Night’ because while everyone else sleeps, she slays dragons and rescues us.”

The Captain smiled, amused at the reference. He decided to add his own two cents worth, “So will the ‘Red Lady’ slay another dragon tonight and rescue the crew?”

Lee looked around her crew shaking her head as if she was disappointed with them. “Shit! I’m going to have to drag your sorry arses out of the fire again, aren’t I?” she signed dramatically. They all laughed.

Then Jim piped up, “As your faithful squire, I can even show Terry what to look for when he inspects the drives. I can show him how to fill out the logs since I have been doing it with you for the last few nights. That way, you will have more time to fix the compensators.”

Lee thought about this, nodded then turned back to the Captain, “Okay Captain, I’ll get my faithful ‘squire’ and Terry set up with the drives. Then I’ll reprogram those pesky compensators. Mind you, I am doing this for an entirely selfish reason.”

Everyone looked at her in surprise. She raised her eyebrows at them. “I don’t know about you lot but having an 18kg piglet slamming into your chest just after you have been rudely woken, is not my idea of fun,” she grinned at them as many of them grimaced.

“Piglet?” questioned the Captain. He was about the only person on the ship who didn’t know about her pet pig.

Jim addressed the issue, “Yeah, she was adopted by one of the piglets that kept getting out of the cargo hold. Dave, the Vet, said that it spent more time in her room than the hold.”

“So, he helped her move the pig into her room permanently. It follows her around like a puppy. Miss Piggy comes when she calls, sits, and evens begs, she is a very cute piggy.”

“Good-golly Miss Molly, I hope its house trained!” said the Captain.

“Of course,” said an indignant Lee. “I’ve even taken her piggy-tray out of our room because she always goes to the compost heap in the hold. She even wipes her feet before coming back.”

Everyone laughed, and the Captain just shook his head. He had heard of strange things happening aboard starships but a ‘pet pig’, was definitely up there with the best.

“You are a truly amazing woman Lee,” he said. He looked as his minder, “Well, I will leave you all in peace. I had better get some sleep.”

“Hey Captain, before you go. If you get woken a couple times in the night because you are floating in bed I’ll apologise now,” said Lee.

“That is more than acceptable Lee. Oh! If you get finished before 08:00 hours, you have my permission to knock off early. Goodnight all,” and he left to their ‘night Captain’s.’

Lee sorted out the jobs to keep the rest of the crew busy. Then Lee and Jim took Terry to the drive room. They showed Terry around and explained what was what. For the most part, Lee let Jim be the guide.

She only butted in, to explain something she may have done while Jim was doing something else. They explained how they entered the findings into the log and how to check if any maintenance jobs had come up, or were due for their shift.

Lee assured Terry that he could rely on Jim. She also recommended he uses the peeper to go through the manuals and tutorials for the drives.

If they had any problems, she would be in the Compensator Drive control room and was happy to come and help them even if they thought it was minor. After all, they won’t be jumping anywhere if the drives aren’t working.

The boys agreed and let her get to a programming job.

Lee, in fact, spent just over three hours building and compiling the new program for the compensators.

Half that time was making sure her I’s were dotted, and her T’s crossed. The compensators were not originally designed to do specifically what she wanted them to do.

They did, however, do something similar every time the ship was affected by an outside gravity force like from other planets, asteroids, moons, etcetera, or a change in speed. Lee believed that they were more than capable of doing what she wanted.

She probably could have been finished in less than three hours, as she told Kyle. But she had found some of what she considered ‘sloppy code’. Some of the protection routines were not as effective as she liked, so she fixed them as well.

Lee believed that if you were there to fix something, then you fix all of it. She hadn’t agreed with a couple of the analogue calculations for the grav-sensors that she knew had been installed on this ship, as she thought they gave chaotic results.

So, Lee recalculated them and determined the errors had contributed to the excessive over-compensations, so she fixed them too. If the coding errors she had found had been rectified earlier, it would have helped, but she decided her fix would be better for the long run.