“Work Taylor just as hard,” the captain’s voice announced.
“Yes Sir,” the controller answered as the line went dead.
“Damn, he was watching that?” the floor tech asked.
“The old man sees everything.”
Vladimir stood at the monitoring station in the reactor control room. Located just aft of amidships inside the forward edge of the propulsion section, it was directly aft of the ships four antimatter reactor plants. From here, every detail of each of the Aurora’s powerful antimatter reactors could be monitored and adjusted. Vladimir was busy taking readings as he made some adjustments to one of the reactor’s electromagnetic containment bottles when the chief engineer, Lieutenant Commander Patel entered the room and approached him.
The chief was an older man from India, in his early fifties, with a deeply receding hairline. He was heavy set, and like Vladimir had a passion for his work. He had quickly come to favor the Russian, taking him under his wing and bestowing more trust in him than any of the others on his team.
Accompanying the chief was a tall, distinguished, elderly gentleman, with stark white hair and dark eyes. He was also a civilian, as evidenced by his lack of uniform as well as the way he carried himself. Vladimir instantly pegged him as a scientist, undoubtedly coming to admire the Aurora’s advanced systems. There had been more than a few of them coming by lately.
“Vladimir,” the chief greeted, gesturing him to step aside for a private conversation. “One moment, sir,” the chief told the elderly visitor. He led Vladimir away from the elderly gentlemen to speak privately. “I have a favor to ask of you,” the chief said in hushed tones.
“Anything, sir.” Vladimir had great respect for the chief. He had been a wealth of information and support as Vladimir learned his way around the Aurora’s many systems.
“This man is from Special Projects. He has a team coming aboard as we speak. He has instructions to install and test some very important equipment on board this ship.”
“What kind of equipment?”
“It’s classified. All I know is that we are to give them everything they need, without question. These orders come directly from Fleet Command.”
Vladimir looked puzzled. “What would you like me to do, Sir?”
“I need someone to take care of this team, to be the liaison between them and the Engineering department.”
Vladimir did not like where this was going, as it sounded like he was going to be taken away from the work he loved in order to baby sit a bunch of scientists. “You want me to do this? Vladimir asked. He wasn’t asking a question as much as he was pleading for a way out of the assignment.
“Please, Vladimir,” the chief begged, do it for me. I have so much to oversee already. I need someone I can trust to make decisions on their own.”
“But sir…” Vladimir stopped in mid sentence as the rest of the Special Projects team entered the room, led by a stunning blonde woman. Vladimir’s concentration was suddenly lost.
“Don’t make me order you, Ensign,” the chief smiled, knowing full well that Vladimir would take the assignment willingly, especially after seeing the woman.
“Of course, Sir. It would be my honor,” Vladimir insisted, straightening his uniform.
“Good.” The chief turned back toward the elderly gentleman as the rest of his team gathered beside him.
“I’d like you all to meet Ensign Kamenetskiy. He is my most trusted engineer. He knows almost as much about this ship as I do. I have given him orders to provide you with whatever you need. Vladimir, this is Doctor Karlsen, the project leader.”
Vladimir immediately shook the elderly gentleman’s hand. “It is a pleasure to meet you, sir.”
“And this is his daughter, Doctor Sorenson,” the chief continued.
Vladimir took the woman’s hand, albeit with far more interest. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Ma’am. If there is anything I can do for you, please, do not hesitate to ask.”
Unimpressed by Vladimir’s charm, Doctor Sorenson wasted no time getting started. “You have two unoccupied spaces on either side of the main engineering section, do you not?”
“Yes ma’am. They are to hold the shield generators. They are due to be installed in a few days.”
“Not any more, Ensign,” she advised coldly. “There has been a change in plans. Loading ramps have already been attached to these compartments. Please unlock their exterior maintenance doors so that we may begin loading our equipment as soon as possible. And see to it that no one is allowed into either of these sections without clearance from us.”
“Yes ma’am,” Vladimir relented, a bit confused.
“Also, we will need isolated and exclusive access to two of your reactors. The ones that were to power the shielding systems and energy weapons should work nicely.”
Vladimir was shocked. She was asking to take one half of the ships power generation capacity offline, to be used solely by their little project? He looked to the chief, who simply nodded his approval. “Is there anything else I can do for you?” he relented.
Doctor Sorenson looked at him for a moment before handing him a list. “This should cover it, Ensign.”
Vladimir looked at the list, his eyes widening and his mouth agape. “May I ask what experiments you are doing that would require all of this?”
“You can ask,” she responded as she turned and exited the room without answering.
Vladimir watched as Doctor Sorenson and the rest of her team exited the room, still in shock at her response.
“You’d better get started,” the chief laughed, looking at the list in Vladimir’s hand. “It looks like you’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Vladimir turned and looked at the chief, a look of betrayal on his face.
“Oh, Don’t be that way, Vlad,” the chief insisted. “Maybe you will learn something new? They are very smart people! This Doctor Karlsen has written many interesting papers on field generation!”
“Bah!” Vladimir exclaimed, wadding up the piece of paper and shoving it unceremoniously into his pocket. “Lucky for you, he has beautiful daughter!”
The thin blue beams of light dancing about Nathan’s body flickered out, the hum of the machine fading along with them. With a slight jolt, the narrow platform Nathan was lying on started sliding out of the medical scanner and back into the empty room. As the platform came completely out of the tube, Nathan sat up and looked toward the control room window above.
“That’s it, we’re all done. You can get dressed now,” the technician announced over the loud speaker.
Nathan hopped down off the platform. The scan was the last of a series of tests each of the crew had to go through as part of their pre-flight physical by the ship’s chief medical officer. It had taken several hours to complete, requiring him to dress and undress several times. But it was a break from the back-to-back simulations that the captain had been putting them through for the last week.
The simulations had been brutal, with every possible problem that the programmers could imagine being thrown at them. In fact, there had been a few that Nathan was pretty sure didn’t even comply with the known laws of physics. The only saving grace had been that at least his arch nemesis, Ensign Taylor was being put through just as much hell as he was. Only she seemed to be coping with it a lot better. Nathan was sure that when the time came for her physical, they would discover she was not entirely human.
Wearing nothing but his underwear, he made his way across the cold, bare floor to get to his pile of clothing sitting in on one of the chairs. As he started to put on his pants, the door swung open and Ensign Nash walked in, fully clothed, a big smile spreading across her face when she saw Nathan standing there with a surprised look on his face, not yet half dressed.
“Well, well,” she teased as she removed her shirt. “Doesn’t this seem familiar?”
Nathan freaked, looking up to the control booth, sure that the technician overheard her remarks.
“Relax, Ensign. He can’t hear us,” she whispered as she tossed her shirt on one of the chairs and started removing her boots.
“Look, I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” Nathan said. “You know, since we saw each other at orientation.
