The Contest (Epilogue)

Month 9 Day 9

(Shore Leave Day 10)

1503 Hours

Bugalu

Previously:

“I see,” was the captain’s careful return. “And who am I speaking to?”

Mac grimaced. “Colleen MacDowell. I apologize. ‘Mac’ is my nick name for Dr McGregor.”

“Duck!” Burke called, and half a moment later, McGregor stood beside her. “Lt MacDowell says you fixed her confusion over Yukosk vs Fleet technology a couple days ago. Can you shed any light on that statement?”

“Oh, sure. I sent a report to the ship, so look for it after leave. Quite by accident, Mac- Dowell showed up in a sick bay at the local water park. An allergy to a local plant. Working with the local doctor, we discovered her brain chemistry was considerably different from when she came aboard. Apparently a side effect of meeting Kolla the way she did. So we put her chemistry back to her own, and Kolla’s memories faded away.”

“Not exactly,” Mac refuted softly. “They’re in a file in the back of my mind, readily available if I want them, but they don’t present themselves as my memories.”

“Well, that sounds like an improvement,” Jane stated. “And certainly less confusing for you.” She turned back to the arcade owner. “You do know that my chief engineer is Lt Cmdr Smythe, one of the foremost spaceship engineers in the Fleet, don’t you?”

The portly man gave her a startled look, then let his gaze turn to Smitty. “He’s that Smythe?”

“Indeed,” the captain agreed. “And Lt MacDowell - although assigned to communications - is in the midst of being cross-trained in engineering. So, here’s my proposal; if you have a copy of the schematics for this console, Mr Smythe will oversee MacDowell as she puts things back to rights.”

“No,” Smitty stated firmly.

Burke slowly turned to face him. “It seems the perfect opportunity for you to see how much she’s learned.”

But Smitty would not give in. “She’s already passed her computer test, and this is, as I’ve pointed out, nothing more than a specialized computer. I have others in mind to help me document what she did as they straighten things out. And with a team in here, it’ll get done that much faster.”

“But it’s my mess!” Mac protested before Bugalu could squeeze her hand to stop her. “I don’t ask others to clean up after me!”

“You aren’t asking,” Smitty told her sharply. “I am.”

“But captain!” Mac tried again.

“No, sorry,” Burke responded with a small shake of her head. “I asked Mr Smythe to handle this, so I can hardly micro-manage his decisions about how to do that. However, if you sit down at one of the other consoles and stay quiet, he might let you watch.” She gave the engineer a questioning look.

Smitty looked up from his personal communication device. “What?” For a moment, he seemed uncertain how to respond. When he cast a quick glance at Mac, he actually seemed uneasy at the suggestion. “Alright, sit at medical.” He grudgingly gave her the seat furthest from where he and his team would be working. He turned to the arcade manager. “We’ll need the original specs, and I assume your maintenance crew has some tools.”

“I’ve sent for them. Do you mind if my technician works with you?”

Smitty smiled at him. “If he can get here before we’re done.” With that settled, he took a couple steps toward the trio who had just entered the gameroom. “Since you all got here in under a minute, I assume you were here to see the contest. Therefore, you saw how Colleen treated her console. An unorthodox way to play, but I understand she got good results. However, now we have to put things back the way they’re supposed to be. First, document everything she did. We can analyze it after shore leave.”

Abdulla gave a wry smile to Wilson. “Here we go again.”

Oakhurst shook his head. “Wow. Far more wiring than the computers I’m used to.”

“I suspect the manufacturer does that in an attempt to make it seem like the actual wiring of a ship,” Smythe stated. “But if I’m right, most of it is just for show.”

“Yeah, big blobs of wiring that don’t do anything,” Mac stated.

“Quiet,” Smythe told her. “I said you could watch, but no commentary.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied meekly.

“Some day,” Capt Burke softly told Bugalu, “I want you to explain why you took a communications officer who has barely started her cross-training and made her your chief engineer.”

“She may have only officially started her cross training,” Bugalu replied just as softly. “But I suspect she could pass any engineering test given to her. As long as it isn’t Smythe doing the testing.”

“She didn’t make a good impression on him when she first came aboard. And that poor impression seems to be hanging on far longer than I hoped.” Burke turned to face him directly. “Usually, Wilson is your engineer.”

“I don’t think I’ve spoken to Ivy in a month,” he answered slowly. “Maybe more.”

Burke thought about that for a moment, but didn’t ask for details. “Well, I’m going to get out of the way,” she decided. “Maybe Yellow Dog will give me some practice on Nooto.”

“I suggest you try Bear instead,” Bugalu told her. “Dog is... competitive.”

“Or maybe I’ll try a few laps through that Ohrt Belt simulator, see how rusty my piloting has gotten. Care to join me?”

“Lieutenant!” Smythe roared.

Bugalu snapped to attention. “Yes, sir!” he answered, and heard several other voices saying the same. He turned to see Rags holding a ball of wiring from an upper console panel, Mac standing nearby, and Smythe glaring at them.

“No commentary!” Smythe repeated.

“I was just saying-”

Smitty held up his hand for silence. Mac’s face went red with determined defiance. “Since I don’t remember doing anything to that, then Oak doesn’t need to do anything but put it back inside and shut the panel!” she declared.

“If you didn’t do anything to it, then Oakhurst will see that when he compares it to the schematics, and will know what to do with it!” Smitty returned hotly.

“Does he yell at her like that a lot?” Burke asked.

“She usually starts it,” Bugalu admitted. “But they’re on opposing shifts, so they don’t see each other much.”

“Maybe we should take her with us.”

“I... don’t know if she knows how to pilot.”

“Good. We can call it cross-training,” Burke decided, and raised her voice. “MacDowell! Come with us!”

Smythe gave his captain a glance that was... hard to read. Mac looked confused and kept looking at her friends, all drafted to ‘clean up’ what she had done, but she made her way to Bugalu’s side. “Captain, I-”

“Bugalu says you don’t know how to pilot.”

Now her face paled. “I know the... theory. I’ve never gotten much practice at it.”

“That won’t do. Everybody who serves on a ship should have some rudimentary piloting skills. Come on, we were just going to get some practice at it.”

“But what if that guy still wants to get paid for what I did to his machine?”

“He won’t. If necessary, Smythe will send him to me, and I’ll straighten him out.”

Mac seemed ready to protest again, but the captain distracted her as they moved up to the 3rd level by telling her stories of her own efforts to learn to pilot. Plus a couple embarrassing moments Bugalu had as he learned to pilot the Fireball’s bulk.

No doubt Smythe feels relief now that Mac’s been distracted. He always seems... less tense when she’s not around.

The Contest (Part 4)

Month 9 Day 9

(Shore Leave Day 10)

1429 Hours

Bugalu

Previously:

He couldn’t think in directions anymore; all he could do was keep his half-planned route in mind and guide the ship [Two ships, not just one. Got to keep that in mind.] for the next asteroid to hide behind for a few seconds. In this way, he hoped to put distance and several asteroids between him and all those other ships.

Sparks flew from the engineering console again, and the lights went out, came back as battery-powered emergency lights, barely bright enough to see his console. Mac was muttering to herself, frantically working inside one panel and then another. YD and Beth were working quietly at their consoles. Beth looked mildly concerned, YD looked... calculating.

Bugalu cut the rockets, fired a few bursts forward and let the tethered ships coast into the pocket between 2 ship-sized asteroids that tumbled around each other. “How bad is it, Mac?”

“What?” She took a frantic glance at her console in surprise. “The engines haven’t blown yet.”

He let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. “Is the tractor beam holding?”

She considered another section of her console. “It’s stable.” She glanced at a small viewscreen that showed her the view outside. “Have we lost them?”

“Don’t know yet. We’ll have to wait and see if they find us. How are the shields?”

“Can I cut them back to normal? The extra boost is a strain on the engines.”

“Will they hold?”

“Ummm, I think so. But keeping them boosted will make repairs harder, if you’ll let me start that.”

“And observation?”

“Yeah, that’s fine. I didn’t get to that yet.”

“Return the shields to normal, then, but be ready, in case they find us.”

“I could use a modicum of power,” Beth stated. “I have a dozen... no, 14 patients. The most serious is burns from working too close to the overheating engines.”

“Med bay, then. Oh, and a minimum of life support, if you can. Got that?”

“Yeah, sure.” Mac punched a few buttons and...

The lights went completely out. Even the consoles were dead.

Mac’s voice trembled. “Is that what happens when the engines blow?”

“No, Colleen,” came Smythe’s voice in Bugalu’s right ear. “The game is over.”

“Bugsy?” The lights came back on, and he could see tears in Mac’s eyes. He heard the door behind him open to let them out.

“Game’s over,” he repeated in sudden relief. That was the shortest and strangest game of Survival I’ve ever played. “You all did a great job, like I thought you would. Don’t be surprised if I ask you to be my crew again next time.”

“Next time?” Mac repeated in abject horror.

“Don’t panic about it,” Captain Burke said as she walked inside. “This is the first time he’s challenged senior officers. Usually, he gets challenged by one of his peers. As for you, MacDowell, I suspect you did well. After all, your engines didn’t blow.”

“Captain-!” Smythe protested.

“That’s not a comment on your abilities, Smitty. I take the blame myself. I’m more used to captaining a voyager class rather than a cargo ship.”

“Cargo?” Beth asked.

“That’s right. We were the Samson, set upon by bad luck, pirates, hotheads and who knows what else? Apparently, this simulation had us getting into the trouble that your team was sent to get us out of. Which strikes me as an interesting concept. I assume we had a possibility of not winding up in the situation where you found us, but of course, your portion of the game had to assume we did.”

YD picked up something off the floor and handed it to Mac. “Oh. Thanks,” Mac muttered to her friend.

“You lost your right earbud?” the captain asked.

“Um, no, not lost it,” Mac returned. “Discarded it. It was... distracting.”

“Yes, they can be,” Burke agreed. “If one pays attention to what comes over it. I think that’s why they’re included.”

The owner of the arcade moved past McGregor and into the game room. “Mr Bugalu, I’m afraid I need to point out Clause 124 of the agreement you signed when you requested me to host this challenge match. Clause 124 pertains to any damages that might happen to my equipment. And plainly, there have been damages done.” He pointed to the engineering console, which had most of its panels open, with wires and circuits hanging out in disarray.

Now that it was pointed out, it caught Smythe’s attention, and he walked over to stand in front of it for a good look. “What a bloody mess!”

I never gave it a thought during the game, but players don’t usually dig into the inner workings of the consoles. Blast, I don’t know if I can afford this.

“That’s my fault,” Mac stated. “How much is it? I’ll pay for it, Bugs.”

“I’m not sure you can afford to,” Bugalu told her. “And after paying for the game, I’m not sure I can, either. Maybe, if we pool our resources...”

“Probably not,” the captain said softly. “And I can’t abide having crew members who obsess over their debts rather than pay attention to their duties. Let me see what I can do.” She walked over to stand beside Smitty.

“We can’t let her pay for it!” Mac whispered as they followed a step behind.

“She didn’t say she was going to,” Bugalu returned. “Keep quiet.”

“You’re right,” the captain told her engineer. “It’ll probably need to be replaced. That will be expensive in its own right, but in the meantime, the game will be down, and I’m sure the owner will want damages for lost game time.” She sighed. “I’m almost inclined to promote Bugalu just so he can get this paid off before he retires.”

Mac opened her mouth, but Bugalu squeezed her hand, and she subsided.

“It doesn’t need to be replaced!” Smitty told her. “Where would we be if every time something went wrong on the Fireball, we had to replace something? Things have been... rearranged, from the looks of it. I’d know more if I had the schematics to compare it to. But I can’t imagine she actually did much damage. Whatever she was trying to do, this isn’t an actual ship, it’s just a console for a specific computer game.”

Mac stiffened as Smythe finished his assessment. “Oh!” The engineer turned at her outburst, and her face turned red. “That... explains a lot.”

Smythe asked, “Surely you didn’t think...”

“No, of course I didn’t think I was dealing with a real ship. But I... got caught up in the game, and when the wiring and the circuits didn’t make any sense... Well, some of them reminded me of Yukosk circuits, so I guess I tried modifying them as if they were Yukosk, and...” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “Sometimes it seemed to work.”

“MacDowell, I’m dismayed to hear you are still suffering with confusion between the different technologies,” the captain stated. “I had hoped that confusion would have faded by now.”

“It has!” Mac exclaimed. “Well, not faded, exactly. But I know the difference. Mac fixed it for sure a couple days ago.”

“I see,” was the captain’s careful return. “And who am I speaking to?”

Mac grimaced. “Colleen MacDowell. I apologize. ‘Mac’ is my nick name for Dr McGregor.”

Questions

Month 7 Day 30

1619 Hours

Lt Ragamuffin Oakhurst

Lt ‘Rags’ Oakhurst glanced around the rec room, gave a more intense look at the female using a computer in a corner. Yikes. Della was right about MacDowell’s hair color. That has got to be her. Looks like she’s busy, but Smythe wants this done.

When he approached, the redhead actually had 2 computer screens facing her. One held a schematic diagram that didn’t look complete, and which he couldn’t identify. The other screen showed what appeared to be random groups of words and symbols connected by lines. Sitting next to MacDowell was a dusky-skinned yeoman. “Mind if I join you?” Oakhurst asked.

The yeoman turned her head to look him over, muttered, “Lit.”

MacDowell glanced at his sleeve. “Comp spec.” Sounds like they have a private language. The redhead sighed. “I’m busy, Negron. Go away.”

“I’m not Negron.” Oakhurst waited, but she seemed absorbed in her 2 screens.

A man paused to look at the 2 screens over the redhead’s shoulder. “Working on your projects?”

“One of them.”

“Isn’t this movie night?”

“Give me a minute to see if this makes sense.”

The dark man sat opposite her, gave Rags a look-over. “Oakhurst, isn’t it?” As Rags nodded, the other man offered his hand. “Bugalu,” he identified himself. “Sit down. Otherwise, she’ll refuse to acknowledge you.”

Rags hesitated, but pulled out the final chair and sat as the redhead absently stated, “No, I won’t.”

“You already are,” Bugalu told her. “It’s rude.”

She briefly stuck out her tongue at Bugalu and inched closer to the screens. “Are you here to test me, Lt... ah, not Negron?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then what do you want?”

This isn’t going the way I expected. But when Smythe wants something done, a smart person does it. “I’m trying to figure out what Lt Negron’s report means.”

Red placed a finger on one screen and turned green eyes his way. “So he turned it in. How did you get it?”

“Mr Smythe kicked it to me. I’m the senior ‘comp spec’.”

Her mouth thinned, and her eyes flashed. Both hands balled on the tabletop as she turned to Bugalu. “He could have asked me himself! Why didn’t he-“

Bugalu shushed her. “Think about how well you answer questions for him.”

The anger drained from her face. She realized her finger no longer pointed to either computer screen. She spouted unintelligible whispers.

“Watch your language!” Bugalu told her. She broke off her tirade and gave him a quizzical look. “I listened to Gaelunde cursing for 2 years before you got to the academy.”

She smiled. “Of course. All my brothers are cursers. I sure didn’t learn it from ma!” She looked at her computer screens again and gave a sad sigh. “Guess I’m done; I don’t remember where I was. But it looked logical. I think.” Now she turned her attention to Rags. “Well, Oak, what do you want to know?”

Nobody shortens my last name. They find my first name too comical, and I can’t blame them. “How much computer training did you get at the academy?”

“The usual for communications.”

“You didn’t take any computer courses as electives?”

“No.”

Rags frowned. That confirms her record. Negron thinks she cheated somehow. But cheating isn’t easy. “What about high school?”

The yeoman yawned. “Dog’s right,” Bugalu stated. “You’re not asking the right questions. Let me. Mac, what did you study on your own at the academy?”

“Languages,” she answered.

“Sure. But as Matt and I neared graduation, you said human languages were too much alike.”

“Of course. They all get used by humans.”

“So, after that, what did you study?”

The redhead shot a glance toward Rags, and her face went pink. “Computer languages.”

Now it gets interesting. “Which ones?” Rags asked. The redhead rattled off several translation programs, a number of decoding programs and a few general purpose programs. “You seem to have programs confused with languages, but you studied all that in 2 years? Um, 18 months?”

“I didn’t go home after my freshman/sophomore summer, so it was 26 months.”

“24,” Bugalu corrected. “The academy uses Earth years.”

“Right. Short on gravity, short years.”

“Were the programs harder than human languages?”

The question surprised her. “No. They were created by humans for machines that can’t actually think. Well, compared to humans. They got boring pretty quickly.”

“Then what did you study?” Bugalu asked.

Startled green eyes flashed at the dark man as Red’s tongue nervously moistened her lips. For a moment, she seemed unable to speak, then her eyes darted all around them, she leaned far over the desk and as her face went red, she whispered, “Engineering!”

Rags sat back in surprise, though he wasn’t sure if his surprise was at her admission or at her obvious nervousness in making that admission.

Bugalu shook his head. “Should have changed your field your first semester.”

“You know I couldn’t!” she declared.

“He was light-years away. He couldn’t have kept you from doing it.”

“Except he did!” she hissed.

“Brain-washed,” Bugalu stated.

MacDowell seemed ready to give another hot retort, but hesitated a long moment. “Maybe.”

“Don’t let him win.”

“That’s not as easy as you make it sound!”

“You’ll be cross-trained. Just... let it happen. I bet he never wanted you to be a bad employee.”

“Pa never expected me to be an employee! And when I did enlist, he expected me home as soon as my first tour was over!”

“You’re still here.”

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, gave her dark friend a tremulous smile. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Good,” the yeoman grunted, and touched the redhead’s shoulder.

Red turned back to Rags. “What else, Oak?”

Rags hesitated before offering, “I do answer to ‘lieutenant’.”

“So do I. So does Bugs and others in this room,” MacDowell returned. “Think how confusing that could get. The truth is, I was concentrating when you arrived, and I didn’t catch your name. Thought it started with ‘Oak’ or ‘Oats’. ‘Oak’ seemed more likely.”

“Watch out,” Bugalu warned. “She shortens everybody’s name.”

“I’m used to being called ‘Rags’. One more won’t make a difference.”

“I’m not ‘everybody’,” she told him. “To me, you’re ‘Oak’. Unless the situation is formal. Any more questions?”

“Sounds like all you did at the academy was study. First, languages, then computers-“

“Computer languages,” she corrected. “Yes, I did study. A lot.”

“Did you test out of any courses?”

She nodded. “Several languages.”

“Computer languages?”

Now she frowned. “No. Professor Ingalls thought communications people only needed to use a keyboard. When I asked to test for a computer language, he refused. I never asked again.”

“Negron gave you 3 tests. Did those tests cover all you know about computers and their languages?”

She crossed her arms and leaned on the desk, deep in thought. “I don’t think my knowledge is that organized. Plus, each time I answered a question, he got more upset. No idea why.” She paused, her lower lip caught between her teeth, and lowered her gaze to the desk. “As far as I know, I flunked.”

Flunked? She did better than Negron when he came aboard. And he’s a comp spec. Names isn’t all she shortens, I guess. “You revealed a lot of knowledge. Negron... was supposed to figure out how much you have, and I’m not sure he did. Do you mind if I finish the job?”

She searched his face for a moment. “Are you going to get irritated as I answer questions?”

Rags shook his head. “I like meeting people whose eyes don’t glaze over as soon as I open my mouth.”

Bugalu snorted. “Mac’s are more likely to glow with interest and she’ll dig for more details.”

She turned to the helmsman. “That’s a strange thing to say.”

“No, it’s not. Matt said you were always watching your brothers, pestering them with questions.”

“Well, yeah. I hated being the baby. They could all do things that - supposedly - I couldn’t do.”

“And every time Kevin... Keith? tore into a broken instrument -“

“Karl,” she corrected. “Karl was always cracking open something electrical. And when he wasn’t looking, I’d put it back together.”

Self taught. Some say that’s the best way. “Look, Mr Smythe wants this report back, finished, so would it be possible for you to come to my office now?”

“Well...” She looked to her 2 friends. The yeoman waved her away.

“We can see the movie tomorrow,” Bugalu told her. “I haven’t even ordered the pizza yet.”

“Okay.” She stood up. Rags stood also. She turned one computer to face the yeoman and the other one off. “Engineering?”

Did she just break a date? He realized she was asking about his office location. “Yes.”

She started off, and he adjusted his stride to her pace. She gave him a quick glance. “You’re the senior, but you work C shift?”

“D,” he corrected. “Lets me keep an eye on the others. If I’m handed a problem that the shift specialist has already worked on 3 times, someone’s irritated and won’t be shy about giving me an earful.”

“That’s an interesting way to do it.”

Rags chuckled. “Some say it’s devious. Now, would you prefer I open a test and ask you the questions, or do you just want to talk about computers and programs for a while?”

She looked at him in surprise. “I prefer the latter, but would that be sufficient?”

“Let’s give it a try. Sometimes it works better than questions and answers.”

Nonsense

Month 7 Day 30

0946 Hrs

Smythe

Lt Negron looked up when Smitty entered the computer specialist’s office, and stood to greet him. “Good morning, Mr Smythe.”

I’m not in the mood for polite banter. “Kindly explain the nonsense you sent me this morning on C- on Lt MacDowell’s computer knowledge!” He crossed the small office and threw himself into the visitor’s chair.

Startled, Negron considered him uncertainly. “I thought my report was pretty straight forward.”

I’m not impressed by the way he thinks. “You also thought Lt Harris had left her computer on, and that you could easily shut off the alarm on MacDowell’s computer.”

“Ahh, yes. I did,” Negron agreed, and started to sit down. Smitty let his scowl deepen, which made Negron stand up straight again. “I gave Lt MacDowell 3 tests, beginning with-“

“I saw all that,” Smitty snapped. “After she passed 3 tests with the kind of scores I might expect from a computer specialist, you somehow arrive at the conclusion that she failed? That’s the part I don’t understand!”

Negron swallowed. “I can understand your confusion, Mr Smythe. I thought about those grades for days, trying to figure out how she did it. I still don’t know, but…” He licked his lips nervously. “Look, she got the usual training in computers that all communications cadets get. But that training would not have gotten her the kind of grades she-“

“So obviously, she cheated!”

“Yes, sir. Without the training-“

Smitty tried not to grind his teeth. “Mr Negron, did you join the fleet with the intention of being a computer specialist?”

“Yes.”

“How did you prepare for that specialty, before arriving at the academy?”

“I took a heavy load of computer courses in secondary school.”

“And before that?” Not everybody needs formal lessons in order to learn.

“I’m… not sure I knew what career I wanted, but computers were an everyday experience in my life as a child. We used them at school, to do homework, to research…”

“So you actually started learning about computers by using them.” And that’s the only clue I’m going to give him. If he can’t figure that out…

“I… I suppose I did. But everybody uses computers these days. They’re a learning tool for babies, even before they’ve learned to walk.”

“So they are.” The fool still doesn’t understand my point. “Call Oakhurst.”

Negron hesitated. “Lt Oakhurst is probably asleep, Mr Smythe.”

“Then wake him up!” Smitty bit out.

Negron gave a jerky nod and punched a code into the intercom on his desk. After a brief wait, a groggy voice asked, “Is this important?”

“This is Negron. I sent my report to Mr Smythe today, and-“

Smitty raised his voice to drown out the babbling. “Mr Oakhurst, are you awake enough to remember an assignment I’m about to give you?”

“Just a second.” Smythe heard Oakhurst quietly say, “Computer, start recording this call.” The senior computer specialist took a deep breath, sounded somewhat more awake. “Okay, I’m ready.”

Smitty nodded. “Lt Negron sent me a report today that does not make sense. I’m kicking it to you. Figure out how much the crew member mentioned in the report does or does not know about computers, and explain how you come to whatever conclusion you reach. And try not to take 12 days to do it.”

“Yes, sir. Anything else, sir?”

“No. You can go back to sleep.”

“Computer, stop recording.” The line went dead.

“You and I will discuss this further,” Smitty told the young man still standing in front of him. “After I get Oakhurst’s report. Because that will tell me if you’re a genius who single-handedly caught a crew member cheating to get qualified in a specialty she hasn’t shown much interest in… or you’re a blithering idiot who misjudged a crew member because he didn’t like her.” He got up and left, still angry and… confused.

Smitty headed back for his office on the other end of engineering. Negron is an idiot, to think that Colleen must have cheated because she passed all the tests he gave her! All 3 of them! He caught a glimpse of someone hurriedly stepping out of his way, but didn’t even look up, he was so engrossed in a maelstrom of jumbled thoughts. Yes, I did something kind of the same. Only I think I can cut myself a little slack, since she never passed any tests that I gave her. And I wasn’t ready to dismiss her because I didn’t like her. Quite the opposite, in fact. Space, I’m in a mess.