“Pass me the number seven molecular wrench, honey,” I said without
looking up from my work. I needed to keep an eye on what I was doing because I
had three micro-clamps and a positron patch in place, and the neutron flow was
temporarily in reverse across two junctions in the common matter circuit.
Tricky stuff.
Consuela (my Tejana subordinate) rummaged in the tool kit and handed
me the wrench. Then the sat back against the bulkhead with her long, Latina
legs stuck out across the corridor and blew through her lips.
“I’m bored, Skip,” she announced.
I made a tiny adjustment with the molecular wrench, returned the
neutron flow to its proper direction – there, that should hold for now – and
relaxed.
“I know, I know. It is boring sitting there while someone else does the work, but
shipboard regulations state that each job on the replicator system has to be
attended by at least two specialists, even if one of them has to stand around
and scratch her bahookie while the other one grafts.”
“Hey!” Consuela objected, and I laughed.
“Anyhow,” I went on. “I just have a couple more tweaks to make and
this wee fella will be replicating anything from the Works of Shakespeare to a
planet!”
I could make a replicator sing the Marseillaise, and Consuela knew
it!
I was just removing the last mirco-clamp and was about to pull my
head out of the hatch and secure the cover, when there were footsteps along the
narrow corridor.
“You there! Technicians! You’re in the way,” snapped a young voice.
Consuela and I stood up to look at whomever it was in whose way we were. I
rolled up the sleeves of my overalls just enough to reveal the skull tattoo
with the words “Freedom or Death” in Romulan. We were, it appeared, in the way
of four Starfleet Academy types. To us they seemed to be little more than
teenagers. Two young men, two young women.
“Is this what they teach at the academy these days?” I said. “How to
disrupt the most vital work on the ship? How to throw your insignificant weight
around?”
The tallest of the group stepped forward, his face reddening.
“Is that how you address superior officers? Stand to attention!
You’ll be on a charge for this!”
Consuela began to come to attention.
“As you were, Leading Replicator Technician Sanchez,” I said,
glancing over my shoulder. Then I turned back to the young Academy type.
“Superior officers? Three Ensigns and a Third Lieutentant in a uniform so new
it hasn’t even developed a sweat-wrinkle yet. Four new-aboards who probably
don’t know what part of the ship they’re in. Four pips who have yet to squeak.
How long have you been on the USS Enterprise – a week? Two?”
“That’s beside the point. You’re insubordinate…”
“And you’re presumptuous. Check regulations, check the chain of
command in this ship, check who is answerable to whom. You’ll find that Senior
Technical Ranks in the Main Systems Groups are not answerable to Ensigns and
Third Louies in Bridge Relief. In fact if anyone has to get out of the way,
it’s you.”
The three Ensigns looked confused, but the Third Louie was still
black-affronted and stood there with his hands on his skinny hips. I sighed.
“Okay,” I said “Let’s not make this any bigger than it needs to be.
You’re new on board and you don’t know how things work. You’re full of Starfleet
Academy and probably the applause of graduation is still ringing in your ears.
Hey, that’s not a problem, everyone has to start somewhere. I can remember when
I was an apprentice technician who had never left earth gravity and didn’t know
one end of a gravitational torque meter from the other. We’ve all been there.
But the more time you spend here on the Enterprise or any of the other
Starships the more you will realise that ‘chain of command’ isn’t quite what
you think it is. Okay, tell me – what do you think the most vital functional
collectives in this ship are.”
“That’s easy,” said the tall one. “Bridge Command, Astro-Navigation,
Main Engineering, and Weapons.”
I shook my head. “Straight out of Year One text book. And totally
wrong. Anyone else care to hazard a guess?”
One of the ensigns, a young Vulcan with knitted brows, took a breath
and said, “With all due respect to the Third Lieutenant, logic demands that the
Scientific Division headed by the Science Officer should be in the first
quartile, although strictly speaking it is a sub-division of Bridge Command.
Similarly Warp Drive Division, although theoretically a sub-division of Main
Engineering. If you insist that the rest of the Third Lieutenant’s selections
are wrong - and I have to say the logic of that escapes me, then the Security
and Away-Team sub-divisions seem the only remaining candidates of any
relevance.”
I shook my head again. “No cigar, Logic-Boy. Anyone else?”
“Communications?” That was a small, slender girl with dark hair.
“Life support? Transporter?” That was her mousy friend.
“Miles away. Light years even. Okay, allow me to give you a lesson,
if the Leff-tenant has no objection.” The young man in question turned bright
red. Since Standard American had become the lngua franca of
Starfleet some greenhorns tended to object to British pronunciation of their
ranks. I ignored him and continued.
“As you all know, the working collectives on board a Starship are
divided into what used to be called ‘Departments’ but what are now called ‘Divisions’,
with an Officer of Commander level at its head. These may contain
‘sub-Divisions’, and both Divisions and sub-Divisions contain ‘Units’ with
responsibility for specific duties. These duties are divided into ‘task areas’
and each task area is the responsibility of a ‘Team’. An individual operatives
responsibility, whether command, executive, or active, is contained in a ‘Seat’
- one talks about ‘Navigation Seat’ and ‘Helm Seat’ on the Bridge, ‘Energiser
Seat’ in Transport, and so on. All fairly basic...
Now, the four most important working collectives on a Starship are
as follows, in reverse order. Number four - the Jeffries Tube Maintenance Team,
headed by the Senior Jeffries Tube Technician. The Jeffries Tubes is vitally
important to any Starship because it gives access...”
“Excuse me,” interrupted the knitted-brow Vulcan, his brows now at
‘purl one, take two together, cast off’. “You just said the ‘Jeffries Tubes is’.
Didn’t you mean ‘the Jeffries Tubes are’?”
I shook my head.
“A common misconception,” I said. “The Jeffries Tubes, although
grammatically a plural, is always referred to on board a Starship in the
singular. It’s tradition, a bit like referring to the ship as ‘she’. Also, when
you think...”
“I’ve never got that either,” broke in one of the other ensigns.
“Even the USS Richard Millhouse Nixon is referred to as ‘she’.”
“... of it, the Jeffries Tubes is a single system throughout the
whole ship. It is a single tubes. One tubes. A discrete tubes. Each segment has
a different designation - Port Upper Decks Transfer, Lower Engineering Third
Junction, Accommodation Straight-through, Aft Fluke, Gunnery Deck Archangel
Moroni Passway...”
“Pardon me?”
“... Don’t ask. Anyhow, as well as giving access to all vital
systems and carrying all the major functional trunking, cable, and busbars, the
Jeffries Tubes is invaluable when the ship is boarded by unfriendly aliens.
They may occupy the whole ship and lock the Bridge Command in Sick Bay, but
they never think of the Jeffries Tubes, and the Bridge Command always manage to
out-flank them by going through the Jeffries Tubes. Voila!
Okay, at number three we have the Inertia Damping System Maintenance
Unit. Now the Inertia Damping System are the...”
“Er... “ interrupted the young Vulcan. “... nothing. Please carry
on.”
I heaved a melodramatic sigh and continued.
“The Inertia Damping System are the most important element of a
Starship’s mechanical function. Without it even the most sophisticated Starship
would have to take several weeks to accelerate even to quarter impulse power if
its crew was to survive. It would have to function as nothing more than an
un-manned probe.”
It’s truly remarkable how the words ‘un-manned probe’ always cause
laughter amongst young Academy types. I allowed the sniggering to die down and
continued.
“Number two - the Heisenberg Compensator Maintenance Team. If the
circuits on which compensating for the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle relied
were so much as a thou out of whack, then the whole transporter system would
have to be shut down and everything would have to be transported by shuttle. The HC is the thing that stops a transporter beaming your molecules randomly across all points in the Universe simultaneously. That compensation is, of course, impossible, so the HC is incredibly complex and incredibly important. Without it all Away Team work, prime freight transference, etcetera etcetera would be
slow, expensive, unviable.”
“I must ask you this, as you’re a technical... person... officer...
um...” The Third Lieutenant was now much less sure of himself than he previously
had been. “How does the Heisenberg Compensator actually work?”
“It actually works very well, thank you,” I said and went on without
a pause. “Top of the list and undeniably the most important working collective
on this and any other Starship is the Replicator Maintenance Unit. On this ship
that means me – I’m the head of the Replicator Maintenance Unit on the USS
Enterprise and I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking she would say that. Well yeah, of course
I would. But also it happens to be true. Just look around at everything that
isn’t welded down in this ship, and a good many things which are. Where did you
draw that tricorder from, Third Leff-tenant?”
“Stores… er… Ma’am.”
“Uh-huh. Logic Boy, your communicator, where did you get that?”
“Stores, Chief Technician Marshall,” he answered, reading the
designation on my overalls.
“Okay. All of you, the shipboard uniforms with the Enterprise’s own
cuff-flash, where did those come from?”
“Direct from the Quartermaster, Chief,” said the mousy young woman.
“And where did you all eat last?”
“Mess Deck,” they chorused.
“Right. In that case everything you have used or consumed in all
those activities has been made possible by the efficient functioning of the
Replicator System,” I said. I paused and looked at them.
The Third Lieutenant thought for a few moments.
“So… the Replicator System is… are… er… is…” he faltered. I didn’t
help him out. He settled on ‘is’. “The Replicator System is the most important…
thingie in the ship, right?”
“Exactly,” I said. “Keep up this standard, Third Leff-tenant, and you’ll go far! Now then
ladies and gentlemen. Would any of you like to hazard a guess at the basic
principles of replication?”
The mousy one put up her hand, as though she was still in school.
“Please Ma’am, it responds to a verbal, visual, or electronic command by
searching a database in which is stored the precise, sub-atomic template for
several trillion objects and substances and constructing the object or
substance specified in the command.”
I nodded and she beamed.
“Yep,” I said. “Straight out of ‘Starship 101’! But can you tell me
what it constructs the ‘object or substance’ out of? Anyone?”
They looked around at each other as though reluctant to speak, as
though they had an answer but were reluctant to give it, knowing that it would
only reveal their ignorance when my follow-up question came. Then the
dark-haired young woman piped up.
“Common Matter, Ma’am.”
“Yes, Ensign,” I said. “Full marks. Good old Common Matter. Anyone
know what that is? No? Well it’s a kind of soup made from cosmic particles
gathered at the forward nacelle scoops and the main saucer scoop.”
They looked relieved that they hadn’t been required to answer, and
interested even.
“Look,” I said. “No it bloody well isn’t. I only said that to see if
you would be daft enough to swallow it. What ‘forward nacelle scoops’? What
‘main saucer scoop’? Look, here’s a schematic of the Enterprise on this
bulkhead – point them out to me. Go ahead. Okay you can’t, because there aren’t
any such things, and you ought to know that! But I wasn’t kidding about Common
Matter, it exists. Which of you bright sparks is going to tell me where we get
it from?”
I looked at them. They were not so much bright sparks any more as
they were four pieces of damp kindling. If you have ever back-packed on the
planet Monsoonia and tried to light a camp fire you’ll understand the metaphor.
“Oh-kaaaayyy,” I sighed. “Common Matter is the product of every
redundant and wasted item that the ship might produce. Anything we don’t need,
anything we discard, is converted to its basic sub-atomic nature, compressed,
and stored in the Common Matter Tank… right here… see the schematic? It’s
maintained by a specialist team, full title the Replicator Maintenance Unit
Common Matter Tank Maintenance Team – ‘the Tankers’ for short. They’re headed
by a Senior Replicator Technician who reports direct to me. The USS Enterprise
is a green ship, it recycles everything it wastes. Even the urine and fecal
matter you flush away in the heads…”
There was a silence in the corridor that you could have driven a
screw into as what I had said sunk in. The young Vulcan spoke first.
“But that means…”
“Uh huh. You have been eating your own poop since the day you
stepped on board.”
I never realised before that people really did turn green with
nausea. Of course the Vulcan didn’t, being already green – it’s the copper in
Vulcan blood – but his companions now had the same skin tone exactly.
“Er… may we be excused, Ma’am?” said the Third Lieutenant.
“Dismissed.” I said, and they legged it down the corridor. I could
hear retching as they fled into the nearest turbo-lift. I hoped they could hold
it.
“You’re bloody evil, Marie,” said Consuela.
“What? Why? It’s perfectly true that sewage from the heads goes into
Common Matter.”
“Yeah, I know that. It’s more that you’ll now have three Ensigns and
a Third Louie saluting all the Technicians in the ship, talking about the Archangel Moroni, and sounding like idiots
when they mix up their grammar.”
“By the time they realise they’ve been had, they’ll have grown up
enough to see it was all part of their learning curve” I said. “Anyhow, I’ve
got news for you – you’ll like this – I booked the Warrant Officers’ Forward
Conference Room for oh eight hundred…”
“So what?”
“Well, I also hacked into the electronic diaries for Yeoman Janice
Rand and Lieutenant Nyota Uhura and scheduled a meeting for them in the same
room for the same time.”
“I just know there’s more to this,” said Consuela.
“Damn right. Here’s the good bit,” I said, not able to suppress a
grin. “I also tweaked their personal replicator out-ports so that when they ask
for a spray of their favourite ‘Hyper-kitteh’ perfume it comes laced with a
powerful Sapphrodisiac.”
Consuela thought for a minute, then said, “I’ll fight you for Uhura.”
“Hold that thought,” I replied.
We picked up the tool kit and jack-and-jilled it down the corridor. Consuela
shook her head as she walked.
“Totally, utterly evil…”
