Chapter 12: Introducing the Ship

"Our" freighter AIs were confident that the warship's AI understood our environmental needs, and we would find breathable Earth-normal air at 1000 millibars pressure: about 21% oxygen, about 2% water vapor and other minor components, the rest nitrogen. We should have a 1 g gravity field, Earth-normal lighting and 25 degrees Celsius ambient temperature, radiation levels below a standard that they had come up with for several of their species, and a noise and vibration level below some number I don't remember any more.

One of our paranoia decisions was that we would keep a slight overpressure in the shuttles while we were around the ship. We had decided that, until further notice, any shuttle leaving Jupiter Station for Ganymede would increase air pressure to 1025 mb during the trip and maintain that until it returned to the Station.

This policy meant that, any time we were docked to the ship, using the personnel airlock in the nose would tend to move air from the shuttle into the airlock, and from the airlock into the ship. Brownian movement and air current eddies would allow some air movement the other way, but that simple precaution would prevent mass air exchange between the shuttle and the ship.

It would also prevent people from just opening the hatch doors and leaving them open. The shuttle's controls -actually everything we had up here with environmental systems, from the freighters all the way down to the ore-barge tugs- included an interlock that prevented a hatch being opened if there was a pressure differential. If we had an emergency, we could disable that interlock to get a hatch open NOW, but during normal operations it was a safety feature. We had the AI activate that interlock, and that forced the hatches to be cycled as an airlock.

I had five people with me but only three of us could fit in the airlock space at one time. We had the shuttle pilot vent the airlock to space, then we could refill it from the shuttle. Once that pressure was equalized, we could open the hatch on our side, go in, and shut that hatch. Then, we could vent the airlock space into the ship, and when those pressures were equal we could open the outer hatch. The inner hatch, the one behind us, now had that 50 mb differential and could not be opened. All of this was dealing with the double-hatch airlock system in the shuttle itself.

With all that behind us, my ChEng, his lead environment tech Chief Petty Officer Andre Gaillard, and myself could see what looked like a normal Confederacy personnel hatch, like the one that our own berthing pods used. In fact, if you were curious and looked around at your own berthing pod's hatch, you might notice that your pod had one that was normally closed, and you were standing on another hatch attached to your ship, one that was normally open if there was a pod attached. Freighter #12 had 95 ship-side hatches that were always open and one that stayed closed, because that pod still held our four marooned explorers and it wasn't docked any more.

I put my hand on the access plate, and the ship's hatch opened. Just like one of our pods. Good. The AIs had said I wouldn't have to take my glove off, but I'd been worried.

Before I went any further, though, I called out "Hello the ship! Permission to come aboard?"

<The Human Captain Roger Edelmann is authorized to board this ship and assume command. No others may board until he has done so and authorized them to board the ship.>

Pretty much the same voice as all the AIs we were used to. That had been another worry. Would this ship understand English? The AIs had assured us that their translation routines had been disseminated to all Confederacy AIs that might deal with us.

"I am Captain Roger Edelmann." I stopped talking there, but the ship's AI didn't say anything else so I waved my ChEng and his Chief to stay and walked forward into the ship. Past the access hatch area -which I could see also had two hatches; it could be used as an airlock if needed but for now both were open- there was a short passage with equipment on either side, then a larger passage that would go fore and aft; probably the main access-way for this small ship.

The ship didn't feel 'alive', but it certainly wasn't dead, either. We had lights, we had air -how good was another question but we could tell from how the suits acted roughly how much pressure there was- and we had gravity.

"Ship, how do we do this? Is there a ceremony?" I couldn't get out of my mind a soft-porn story I had read as a kid about some guy in this situation who took command of a derelict spaceship by slamming his hand down on some kind of spike. The spike acted as a genetic sampler to identify the new Captain by, and the pain was a kind of down-payment and demonstration that he would do whatever was necessary to safeguard his command. Please, God, no spike!

<You have been verified by the Earthat System AIs to be the human Captain Roger Edelmann. I accept you as this ship's commanding officer. What name do you choose for this ship?>

"Um, we haven't decided that yet. Can we, for now, simply call this ship 'Warship One'? I must consult with my superiors before I give you a better answer. Sorry."

<That is acceptable, Captain. No apologies are required. What are your orders?>

"I would like to bring my crew onboard and have them start to get to know the ship. Is it safe to bring more people onboard?"

<All accessible parts of the ship are within the specified environmental limits for your species. This ship's environmental systems can handle up to sixty of your species indefinitely; more personnel than that would eventually overload the systems.>

Okay, that puts an upper limit on crew, then, unless we can upgrade those systems. "Very well. I will bring my crew onboard, then. Please help us monitor our numbers and the environmental systems..." which ones? " ... and let us know if we are overloading any of them."

<Very well, Captain.>

I waved for Billy and Chief Gaillard to join me. "Did you two get all that?"

"Yes, sir. You're the Captain and this is 'Warship One', for now."

"Very good. Ship, can you direct these two to your environmental controls and help them learn how they work?"

<Of course, Captain. Chief Engineer William Littles, Chief Petty Officer Andre Gaillard, please turn left at the main passageway... >

I noted that the ship's AI already knew who they were without being introduced, and then I ignored them for my own problems. We needed to get everyone else in here. "Ship, can you pass a message to my XO to get everyone else in here? I'd like to have Ensign James in the first group. Have him bring a notepad and something to write with."

As expected, Dickie had everyone piled up in the cargo area, waiting for orders to run people through the airlock. Ens. James had just gotten his commission as an officer of the United States Navy. In three years, Junior would be in the same position if he made it through the Academy. The Ensign had been given two weeks of leave, then sent to us immediately after he returned to Annapolis as sort of a check or fresh look on us old salts. Okay, but what do I do with him? He's a bright kid and freshly educated but has no real experience. This was a job I could give him for now.

"Ensign James reporting for duty, sir!"

I returned his salute. "Ensign, I don't have a comfort level yet with your abilities, so I've got to give you a job that's far beneath your training level but at the same time MUST be done properly. The XO will provide you with the tools you need. We need a positive record of who's entered the ship and who's left. If you can, also log their times. Maybe the ship's AI can help with that, but I want a non-automated PAPER record of every human on this ship. If something goes wrong and we have to evacuate, we can't rely on electronics that may or may not work to tell us who's missing. Get some paper and write it down. Got that?"

"Yes, sir."

I turned to Doc Smith. "Doc, no change in your job. Unless someone gets hurt, your job is to wander around aimlessly, just checking on our people. If all goes well, you'll never have anything to report or do. If you can, find the ChEng and get a rundown on how the air is supposed to look. No one is taking a helmet off until I say so, and I won't even think about it until you've reported that you think it's safe."

"Yes, sir."

I turned to the third man. "Petty Officer Miller, what orders did the XO give you?"

"I'm a runner, sir, if you need a message hand-passed back through the airlock."

"Very good. Unless I send for you, stay here with Ensign James and help him count noses. We CANNOT lose track of our people in here."

"Yes, sir."

"Ship, can I pass messages through you to my XO?"

<Yes. Simply start with the title or name and we will connect you.>

"Very good. XO, can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear, Captain. What do you need next?"

"Where's that pad and pen?"

"Coming through now, sir."

"Very good. Keep sending people through. Captain out." That worked very well, I thought. PO Miller would be out of a job if this always worked that well.

"Ship, are you in contact with anyone else?"

<I am in contact with all other Confederacy equipment and ships in this system. How can we help you?>

"How good is the link? Can we talk with the ships at Jupiter Station?"

<We have realtime communications with all ships in the Jupiter area. There will be a delay of approximately 3 seconds each way for communications with the ships in Earth orbit.>

... which is roughly 40 light-minutes away. These people have FTL drives, and they have FTL comms. "Thank you for telling me that. My direct superior is Rear Admiral Sykes on the ship we have designated 'Freighter #12'. Can you give his office a feed that allows him to listen in to what we're doing? It would also be nice if he could give me advice if he sees something going wrong that we haven't noticed yet." Don't really want to do that, but he's not a micro-manager and he'll need the info if anything happens to us...

<Admiral Sykes and his office are listening in and can comment if they desire.>

"Thank you. Admiral, everything here looks good. I'm bringing everyone onboard but keeping the shuttle docked."

"You're doing fine, Roger. I'll leave you alone unless the sky starts falling. Thanks for the feed!"

"You're welcome, sir."

By that time Dickie had come through. I asked him to assign people to look at different areas and equipment as we identified them and the people became available, and have three people standing by to act as guinea pigs when Doc said it was time. Meanwhile, I was going to try to find somewhere I could talk with the AI and try to see what help it could be.

"Ship, do you have drawings of the ship's layout? Do you have someplace we can sit down and look at them?"

<I have been given a module on your species' preferred methods of communication and recordkeeping. If you will turn left at the main passageway I will lead you to the main dining area. It has a replicator which is producing the document you are asking for.>

It can't be that simple, can it?

Fuck, it was. I found an open room like a smaller version of the freighters' mess area with tables and benches, and the replicator had a folded-up piece of paper in it. I took it over to one of the tables and unfolded it. It took a while. Folded, it looked like normal-sized paper, like something from a printer. Maybe the European A4, which was slightly larger than the standard American 8.5"x11" paper.

I ended up with something almost 3' by 4'. On one side it showed the standard profile, top view, and end views, the same as you would get from a coffee-table book on ships or airplanes. On the other side, it showed internal arrangements for three decks. It was easy to find where we were; the upper and lower decks were both partial decks; they weren't as large as the main deck, and on the main deck drawing I could easily find the access airlock, then follow the side corridor and the main access-way to the dining room I was in.

It was no different than the drawings I'd used for 23 years in the Navy. Anyone familiar with ships or aircraft could follow this.

"Ship, can I have five more copies of this? I want to hand them out to my people."

<Five copies will be ready momentarily.>

It really was just that easy. Why didn't we have these drawings for the freighters?

While I was waiting for that, I needed to talk to people. "Ship, I need to talk to some people. Dickie, if you turn left at the main passageway you'll find me at a table. Bring three messengers. Tell Ensign James to have everyone check in with you here."

"Will be right there, Skipper."

On to the next message. "Admiral Sykes, this ship is doing everything it can to be helpful. I'm looking at a recognition drawing of the ship's profile, top view, and front and back views, and if I turn the drawing over I see layouts for each of three decks. This may not be as hard as we were afraid."

"That's great news, Roger, but don't count your chickens before they hatch!"

"Yes, sir. I'll send you a copy with the first shuttle to return." Why didn't I tell the ship to email him one? Because I didn't think of it, that's why. I was still thinking I had to hand-deliver the drawings.

By then Dickie had shown up, and the replicator had ding!ed while I was reporting in to the Admiral. "Dickie, why don't you take this room over as your office, for now? This drawing is yours. I'm keeping one, I want one to go to ChEng, and two go in the shuttle for the Squadron records."

I handed one to one of the runners and two to another, telling the second "Take these back to the shuttle then return here to the XO for your next mission."

Putting my hand on the man I had given just one copy to, I said "Ship, can you direct this gentleman to the Chief Engineer?"

<Of course. Petty Officer Richard Anders, please turn around and follow the red line.>

Again, the ship's AI knew the name and rank of someone never introduced to it. This could be pretty easy, if the AI was determined to be helpful and never made any mistakes. That first one I could easily believe. That second one I couldn't afford to believe.

Speaking of which, it was time to check on Doc and the ChEng. "Ship, I'm going to the same place. Dickie, I'm going to see if we can start testing the air. I hate these helmets. You stay here and try to make sense of the drawings. If you can find the control room, send someone up to look at it."

While I was following Anders, I heard Dickie ask "Ship, where is your central control station? I want to send Billings, here, to look at it." As long as the AI never made any mistakes, this was going to be REAL easy.

The ChEng, Chief Gaillard, Doc Smith, and I spent a while going over how the atmosphere management system worked with the AI. It was a lot more complicated than the ones on the freighters, the ships we were beginning to call "Auroras". Those freighters used replicators for everything, from emitting things they did want in the air, like oxygen, to absorbing things they didn't want in the air, like biological byproducts. This ship could do that, but it also had a lot of special-purpose air-handling equipment.

To start with, the ship had its own version of 'the bomb', the O2 generator. It was a lot smaller than the ones we had on the boats. Early submarines had been forced to save air in pressurized tanks, and use chemicals to absorb CO2 and provide O2 as needed. Later diesel boats had O2 generators that could split water into H2 and O2. The hydrogen got dumped back into the water, and the pure oxygen gas got compressed into tanks for later need. Since air was only about 21% oxygen, compressing pure O2 was almost 5 times as efficient as compressing air.

There were several reasons for using a 'bomb' instead of collecting huge amounts of oxygen. One big one was that there was no need to store several weeks' worth of highly-compressed oxygen in heavy tanks that required big compressors that took a lot of power and made a lot of noise. Another reason was that we didn't expect a submarine to ever not be able to get all the water it wanted. Sure, we had to clean it up, but we had to do that for several other reasons, too. We needed reasonably clean water for bathing, even cleaner water for drinking and cooking, and as pure as we could get it for the steam plant and the reactor, both of which were, when you got down to basics, simple heat transfer systems using water and steam. Diverting a small amount of pure water for the bomb was no big deal.

Those generators had two big problems: They used lots of electric power but of course that was no problem for a nuke. The diesel boats could only run their generators when they were snorkeling. The really big issue was that they liked to blow up. The O2 and the H2, if not carefully kept separate, were very happy to combine again, thus liberating all the energy that had been invested in separating them.

There's a picture of what was left of a diesel boat from back in the 1950's, I think it was British, that had a problem with their O2 generator. It was taken by a camera with a fish-eye lens. In that one picture you could see both the forward tubes and the aft tubes. Everything else, all the equipment, all the pressure bulkheads, everything in the whole submarine, had been smashed out of the way when the bomb blew up.

Every navy that used O2 generators had a watchstander who did nothing but monitor the bomb. That thing had almost as many safeguards and automatic shutdowns as the reactor did. If the Confederacy's modern replicator system could generate oxygen as needed from stored water, then, well, we already knew we needed replicators. We'd have to look at getting rid of this thing.

Anyway, understanding everything would come in time. For now, the AI had explained enough that ChEng and Doc both agreed that we could have our three guinea pigs take their helmets off. Chief Littles was going to stay and monitor the air plant until relieved, and Doc was going to go back to the mess area and watch his guinea pigs. I went back with him so that Dickie and the three men could hear the orders from my mouth.

I know we were calling them 'guinea pigs', but in reality we were using those three men as canaries. Ever since the dawn of the industrial revolution when the English started mining for coal to feed the factories and cities, whenever men went into places where the air might be bad, they have taken canaries with them. Canaries are more sensitive to air quality than we are, so as long as they are hopping around in their cage, it's safe to work. If they ever keel over, it's time to get out.

Our three canaries weren't doing anything more strenuous than going over the drawing with Dickie, and that was more to occupy their minds than it was to get any useful work out of them. Still, by the time their 30 minutes were up they knew the ship's layout pretty well.

When Dickie let me know that their 30 minutes were up I was in the control room looking around, but I was willing to go back for this. Down some stairs and back down the central access way. Not far at all.

The ship's AI was so helpful that we were going to be able to save a lot of time we had scheduled for figuring things out, but this particular issue we were going to do by the book. I got Doc Smith, the ChEng, and Dickie to all look me in the eye and tell me they thought it was safe to move to the next step, then I went back to Chief Gaillard and got him to tell me the same thing. When I returned to the mess area, I couldn't come up with any reason not to. "Okay, you three put your helmets on again. You're done with your part of the exercise. Once you get back to the shuttle you can relax until we need you again."

When we had decided how to do this, we had split the crew into two groups, then flipped a coin over which group went first. Either way, Dickie was part of the first group. Once our guinea pigs were gone I turned to my XO. "Whenever you're ready, Commander Wilson. It's your turn."

Dickie looked up like we had all started to do when talking to the AIs. "Ship, please pass this on to all crewmembers: "Starboard Section, stand fast. Port Section, it's our turn to test the air. All personnel in Port Section, remove your helmets but keep them nearby."