Good approach. How many individual omelets do you expect to make from the quantity of ingredients listed?
--M. J. Young
I was thinking 3 egg omelets, so with 3 dozen eggs a dozen omelets.
Little Joe returns while you're making them.
"Yeah, that looks good. More work than you're going to be able to do usually, but nice omelets--the crew will enjoy them.
"Now, usually I'd say you want to put the whole batch in one of the big pans, and toss it in an oven for fifteen or twenty minutes. That'll cook it nicely, and people can help themselves to as much as they like. If you're ambitious you can cook it on the stovetop in the same kind of pan--probably faster, but you've got to watch you don't burn it.
"You'd better head to security--they're going to want you for weapons training."
--M. J. Young
"Ok, thank you for the advice, I'll do that next time."
I'll say that with a smile. (I almost always smile while at work... or anywhere actually. It makes people happier to see someone smile and happier people are easier to handle.)
I'll head on down to security for weapons training then. I'm very interested in what's there and also whether there will be continuing training on the weapons or whether there is an optional program in free time to do so.
"Yeah, you can also microwave omelets, but you have to remember to stir them a couple times and do it on about half power, and you have to do it in glass or plastic, not metal."
*****
You find some of the same students at weapons training as were present on the original tour, minus a couple who are apparently on later shifts and plus a few who are nearing the end of theirs.
"Most of you will at some point rotate into security, at which point you will receive fuller instruction in weapons and defenses, including the ship's weapon systems. For now, it is sufficient for you to know that this panel manages deflective shielding, and this one is for targeted weapon systems. Mostly they're used for destroying space debris and asteroids that pose a threat to hull integrity.
"This is the weapons locker. There are a variety of weapons here, and some of you might be trained in more than one. At the moment, we are passing out laser pistols to each of you. How many have ever used a laser pistol?"
There is a pause for a show of hands; maybe a third of the students have.
"That's pretty good. We have preset the pistols for target practice level, a power level that will leave a mark on the heat-sensitive paper of our practice range targets but is only dangerous on direct hits to eyes--although my instructor was good enough to seriously cripple an opponent on such a hit. We have also engaged the safety. We are going into the practice range, through that door, where each of you will take a few shots in practice level at the targets, so you have some feel for the weapons.
"You are being taught to use this in anticipation of emergency situations. Pirates are rare, but neither they nor terrorists are completely unknown, and there is also the potential for criminal enterprise such as kidnapping attempts of wealthy travelers or robbery of the ship's vaults. You might never need to fire one of these again, but if we need to raise a tactical fighting group in a hurry, we want to know that you have fired one before."
He then explains how to deactivate the safety, saying you should not do so until it is your turn to shoot. He takes the group one at a time, picking someone (he starts with a girl), getting the name, noting it on an electronic clipboard, and talking the student through the steps of releasing the safety, checking the power level, targeting the target, and firing several shots.
"At practice level your power supply will let you shoot a hundred times before it's dead. You have three higher levels, each a significant increase in power consumption and in piercing force, which respectively give you twenty shots, ten shots, and five shots. Power level selection is something skilled users debate, but at your levels of ability you probably won't kill anyone on a single shot--unless we've got a marksman in the group I don't know about."
--M. J. Young
When he picks me to go next and asks my name I'll give it as Mike Washer and then mostly be quiet as he walks me through the steps. Not from being shy, but of respect of weapons and desire to listen closely to the instructions for them.
You pick it up easily enough and hit the target a few times, and they go through the steps of restoring the safety. They then move through the rest of the class.
At the end of the session you're all told that you can use the shooting range and laser pistols for practice on your downtime, if you like.
You are then sent back to the galley. It's been about an hour and a half to do all this.
--M. J. Young
OK, I'll head back to the galley to get my instructions on what to do for the rest of my shift.
After work I'll check my room for coursework. If there is I'll do that immediately and go to the shooting range afterwards, otherwise I'll go directly to the shooting range and get 2 hours practice.
I'll go back to my room after that and get a shower when I can, and then do a search with the reading station for books talking about humans with telepathy. I want to get an idea if it's something well known here that I can read thoughts, or if it's going to be an ace up my sleeve.
The rest of your shift is much like the beginning. You're not that far behind the curve on the equipment, because even if you were a twenty-year-old from this universe odds are against your having had any experience in a kitchen designed to cook for several hundred people at once.
There is a bit of required reading material on engine design. It does not assume you know much more than that certain chemical reactions cause the rapid expansion of gases and certain processes can cause propulsion by ionization and similar projection of energies. It doesn't take more than half an hour to read it.
You spend a couple hours firing off several pistols in the shooting range. You can see that, like many other things, it takes a few minutes to learn but a lot of time to become truly good at it.
Your searches of the reading materials suggests that telepathy is hypothesized but as yet never demonstrated. Mind/machine interfacing systems are in use in some areas, which are mentioned as models for how such telepathic skills might work. Otherwise, it is largely relegated to fiction.
--M. J. Young
I'll exercise in the gymnasium section of the recreation room for an hour, doing laps and some strength training.
Otherwise just going about my daily schedule which has the following priorities:
1.Getting to work on time
2.Getting coursework done
3.Getting in 1-2 hours at the shooting range
4.Getting in 1-2 hours running/strength exercise.
My hope is to be noticed by the instructor or someone at the shooting range as being someone who shows interest and being taken under their wing and taught more, although this is a secondary goal to learning to become a pilot. I just want to know how to defend myself if the time comes which I hope it won't for a long time.
The next day passengers board, and the galley becomes a very busy place. It is amazing to see Little Joe throw his huge bulk around, cooking six or eight different things at once himself while telling ten people, including you, what to make and how to make it.
You are on omelets at the beginning of the shift, then sandwiches near the end. When you're doing sandwiches, generally you put out a tray of something new maybe every forty-five minutes on average. You've got loaves of various lunchmeats and cheeses, loaves of various breads, slicers for both the cold cuts and the breads, grinders to make salads (e.g., chicken salad, egg salad), a wealth of condiments and ingredients, and the freedom to make what you like as long as you keep trays of sandwiches coming throughout the shift.
--M. J. Young
I'll stick primarily to simple meat and cheese combinations like ham and american cheese and turkey and swiss in the beginning and start experimenting as the day goes on. As to condiments I'll make them light on condiments as I don't like mayo, and as such often can't tell how much to add unless being shown for a specific recipe.
Pretty much I'm going about the method of picking a random bread, random meat and random cheese that sounds like it'll taste good together and making that.
Then I'm following the rest of my day as per yesterday, which will become my routine barring significant events.
Also, I waited to post in the morning to see if the bump problem would resolve it self, but there is still not a second page. I will be editing this part out as it's my hope to keep my game thread looking clean for anyone who reads it, but I'm leaving it here for now as a note.
System double posted, editing it down to this. :(
And after my effort to keep it looking clean.
The coursework remains light, a bit of reading each day. The work in the galley gradually expands. Mostly you work for either the Chief of Galley or Little Joe--Joe is in the middle of his shift when you arrive, and the Chief relieves him about halfway through. They both have the same attitude, that you should be familiarized with everything in the galley, partly because you're here to learn and partly because if someone misses a shift for some reason it will be easier to cover their absence if you've got that flexibility in your schedule.
This is going to continue for 25 days, at the end of which you have learned about as much as you are likely to in a crash course, and then you rotate to the bridge.
--M. J. Young
"Welcome to the bridge," the commanding officer says. "I'm First Officer Tomason, and your shift seems to overlap mine. The captain comes in at seven, and since you're here from two to ten you'll be working with him for three hours at the end of shift, most days. Let me give you the tour.
"The Bridge has three primary operational areas: Piloting, from which we steer the ship and program our couse; Astrogating, which tracks the expected movements of planets, comets, and other predictable objects and so gives Piloting the information needed for most of the job; and Scanning, which tries to find any other objects adrift in space including other ships and large asteroids, so we can avoid any problems. You will sit second chair in each station to become familiar with what is done and how. You might be in luck--we expect to dock at Plymouth Station in five days and then depart after a five day layover, so you may have the opportunity to observe both arrival and departure procedures, depending on shift.
"Piloting is front and center. It may be a throwback to old times, since you can't really feel the tilt of the ship, but the screens are aligned to show the pilot what is actually directly in front of his seat.
"Scanning is next to the hatch to weapons, so that if there's a serious problem they can coordinate more easily. Similarly, astrogation is by the hatch to communications, although the days when astrogators were getting frequent updates from each other and planet-based observers are pretty much in the past now.
"As far as I'm concerned, you're the only student on the bridge until five, so you can sit wherever you want in that time. Someone else joins us then, and the two of you will have to trade off on who sits where. The captain may have his own ideas when he arrives, but that doesn't impact the rules when I'm in charge.
"If you have questions, you can ask me, or the officer in station first chair, but not if he looks like he is really busy or concentrating really hard. There are enough people around, anyway, that someone should be available to explain things when you're ready to ask."
--M. J. Young
At the end of three hours you've seen a lot of the routine stuff. A girl enters and says, "Sun Kim reporting for duty, sir."
First Officer Tomason says, "You don't need to be quite so formal with me, Miss Sun, although I'm sure the captain will appreciate it for himself."
"Yes, sir."
He gives her much the same speech he gave you, modified to note that you'll be leaving three hours before she does and that another student should be arriving in her last hour.
"And, as I said to Mr. Washer, sit where you like and get familiar with things, as long as you're not in anyone's way, including each other's. Work it out with him. He's sitting second chair at Scanning at the momeht."
"Yes, sir."
She comes over to you. She is oriental in appearance, dark eyes and hair and the yellow-tinted skin and slightly mongoloid features, about five four and slender, maybe nineteen or twenty.
"Mr. Washer?" she says. "I'm Sun Kim. I was told to coordinate with you concerning where to sit."
--M. J. Young
She smiles a bit shyly. "I'm Kim, then, Mike. At least the first officer caught that Sun was my family name--a lot of the teachers get that backwards.
"I certainly see the advantage of sitting together, but I think there's only one spare chair at each station, so one of us would have to stand--and no," she teases, "you can't sit on my lap.
"I'm most interested in Scanning. I'm hoping to be an engineer, and that seems the most technically-oriented section of the bridge. At least, when I was in engineering, that was the section that we didn't run from there. But you're here first. However you'd like to do it--well, at least, I'll think about it."
--M. J. Young
"Well, flattery aside, I believe the bridge rules require that everyone have a seat and be seated when there is no reason to stand. I don't think that wanting to be able to discuss observations with your fellow student is sufficient reason for you to stand for five hours.
"Since its my first day here, and you've offered, I'm going to put two hours at scanning, and then two hours at astrogation, and then if you aren't busily working there I'll put in two hours at piloting--which means your last hour here today. Does that work for you?"
--M. J. Young
You recognize a sort of symbiosis between the three stations. Scanning detects objects that ought to be avoided, and transfers information to piloting, which adjusts course to avoid those objects. Small course adjustments, though, can put you a very long distance off course, so astrogation is constantly feeding information concerning course correction to get to the intended destination. Sometimes information is sent from scanning to weapons, so that kinetic blasters and lasers can be used against objects which pose a threat and are not easily avoided. Astrogation will also communicate with communications, to alert other ships to larger objects not charted.
You spend most of the rest of the shift at piloting, and then go about your routine. You do not see Kim after work.
--M. J. Young
You do run into Kim at breakfast the next morning. She is already in the crew galley when you arrive, as are a few other students and several members of the crew. She waves for you to join her.
--M. J. Young
"I'm well, and you?"
"So, what do you think of our present class? Is it going to be boring after a couple days, or do you think something interesting might happen?"
--M. J. Young
She laughs when you say it would be difficult to be in a bad mood around her. "Tell it to my sister. I'm sure she'll regale you with all the horror stories of what a bad roommate I can be, and how I embarrass her just by being her sister."
--M. J. Young
"Oh, I guess I figure there's no particular reason to start working when I'm still waking, you know? Get up and get the day started, then after you're awake and comfortable saunter into work ready for the day. Then once work is over, get a light meal and head to bed, and if I happen to stay up a bit late I can sleep later in the morning without worrying about where I have to be.
"So, is that the voice of experience? Have you got a sibling who finds you an annoyance and an embarrassment?"
--M. J. Young
"That happens, I guess. My parents often said that if my little brother was the first he'd have been an only child. So, where do you get your knowledge of sibling interaction? Don't tell me you were a psychology major."
--M. J. Young
She ignores your flirtatious comment, but takes interest in your education. "Oh, so you're going into engineering? That's what I want to do."
--M. J. Young
"Ho-ho," she says with mock derision, "a hot-shot pilot who wants to think he can tell his engineers how to do their jobs, ey? I can see you in that role."
--M. J. Young
"I suppose it depends on which one of us makes captain first. I trust your ego would not be too deflated if you wound up having to work under me."
--M. J. Young
Seemingly missing your innuendo entirely, she says, "Well, perhaps before our course is over you'll get the chance. They will eventually have us doing brief supervised stints in the command chair, you know. But that's a couple years away--if you don't wash out."
She smiles a bit impishly at this last.
--M. J. Young
She smiles evilly. "You know I will, too," she says.
You arrive on the bridge in ample time; the first officer nods acknowledgement of your presence and continues his work. It seems that absolutely nothing is happening--the pilot appears to be reading an electronic novel, and someone in astrogation is watching a video. Only scanning is busy, if you can call watching blank screens "busy".
--M. J. Young
Kim arrives on schedule. The day passes uneventfully.
You've also got your shooting practice and other stuff, and there's reading for your homework, explaining more about ship operations.
The next week passes uneventfully. There are a few stray asteroids tracked and destroyed, and you do get to see some of the process of avoiding collisions and then getting back on course--which is most of what is done in the interstellar spaces, and tricky to do at velocities in excess of light speed in which the presence of an object is detected by its gravitic effects well before its position can be determined visually.
--M. J. Young
Two days later Kim gets pulled to engineering; someone thinks that's better for her and for the ship. She is replaced by a guy who comes in an hour earlier and also prefers the pilot station. He looks to be about a year younger than you look.
You still see Kim in the mornings, as she breakfasts leisurely while you're rushing to get ready.
--M. J. Young
Things go smoothly for the next week or so, and then you are approaching the first port on the cruise. Passengers will be allowed to disembark and take shuttles to the planet, or simply visit the duty-free space station without passing through customs.
There will be a docking upon arrival, and a disembarking upon departure, and you and your classmate will each sit in the piloting second chair to observe one of these. It's agreed that since you were here first and have less time remaining on this rotation, you should be permitted to pick which you'd rather observe.
--M. J. Young
It begins by dropping out of light speed and into near light speed, shooting past planetary orbits in minutes, and decelerating gradually until main engine shutdown brings you to matching velocities with a station. This station has an odd curved tail which vanishes into the atmosphere of the smallish planet below, and is very different from TerraNova. That station was something more like a cylinder with a number of extended docking ports around the bottom levels; this one is all spiky projections from a center core, at which scores of ships are docked.
Directions are given concerning where to dock, and the pilot uses what you would call retro rockets to maneuver the ship alongside the proper dock and ease it in. Viewscreens show camera angles from and around the two hatches--one smaller passenger hatch and one larger cargo hatch--both of which must be within the large seal of the station's docking port.
The pilot speaks steps aloud, and asks for different views on different small screens. The captain is on the bridge, requesting specific views on the main screens and occasionally gives a directive, but these seem to be pro forma, as the pilot is waiting for the command before hitting the switches for the next step.
Seals are tested, then airways pressurized, a request given to the station for permission to board and confirmation of air in the docking channel. The response is that the docking channel is being pressurized, confirmation should come within twenty minutes.
Welcome to Galapagos.
--M. J. Young
The twenty minute wait is exactly twenty minutes, and once it has completed the doors are opened briefly to finalize any pressure equalization, and then closed for safety but able to open whenever anyone wishes to pass through them. The passage between the ship and the station is something like the hallway Max Smart passes through at the beginning of each episode, with doors opening in front and closing behind as you advance through it.
You do not need to report to the bridge again until the day of departure, although if departure is not on your shift you must report on whatever your last shift is before departure time, to establish that you are aboard. You are welcome to be on the bridge during your regular shifts if you like, as scanning will be active and navigation will be doing routine checks, and there will be a pilot on standby at all times in case of an emergency.
There is a five-day layover here, and if you wish to go down to the planet you may, although you should be aware that the slide is four hours down and four hours up, and runs every five hours, and that there might be a rush for the last return trip as passengers often wait until the last minute to return.
Galapagos is inhabited in a tropical area with jungle-like forests and sandy beaches; your paycheck probably won't cover one of the tourist hotels, but you could afford a few meals on the ground.
Speaking of meals, the students in the galleys are a bit jealous, because they have to work through the layover.
--M. J. Young
I did not say that only galley workers were stuck aboard. There are different rules for different sections of the ship. Since the galleys fun around the clock students are expected to appear for their shifts. Engineering students are each being given one day off, rotating which day so that there will be staff full time. Kim is off on the last day, which means she has only one day between when she gets off work and when the ship departs, but she says if you don't mind the fact that she would be rushing she would enjoy that.
--M. J. Young
Sorry--I realized I'd overlooked the swim trunks immediately after I posted; thanks for the reminder.
The cheapest way to get them is in the shop aboard the cruise ship, because you get both a student discount and an employee discount; it also avoids any potential problems with your credit accounts not registering planetside when you first arrive, as it sometimes takes a few hours for your identity to propagate through some planetary systems, particularly those with a lower technology profile.
As to vision correction, there are several options. Laser correction is more accurate than what you know, but is still considered the primitive option. There are cybernetic replacement eyes used in the most severe cases, and there are also implants, micromotor systems that control high quality lenses which in addition to standard focus also provide a small degree of magnification when desired.
--M. J. Young
She suggests arranging to take breakfast on the trip and eat on the beach, so you can catch an earlier transport. In fact, she suggests getting up extra early to do so, so you have the longer day on the beach and can still get back in time.
She also asks whether you want while down there to:
- Hike the jungle trails;
- Attend an outdoor afternoon dinner with the local foods;
- Go dancing and drinking at a club in the evening.
She's only trying to figure out what to pack for the day trip, she says. After all, it would be a shame to find out that you were planning something for which she didn't have the proper attire.
--M. J. Young
On the second day of the layover you get an assignment for a paper due on the day of the anticipated date, giving you two days to finish it if you plan to go on the date. It is a management course paper, asking you to recommend some area in which you believe better efficiency or improved service can be achieved without sacrificing the other.
--M. J. Young
Kim is rather swamped with her paper over the next few days--she not having the luxury of time off from her post. She's often reading from a hand-held during breakfast.
--M. J. Young
She does not know quite what you mean by "proofreading". The computer will spell and grammar check for her. What would you contribute?
--M. J. Young