章節 68: 4+
So, your first view of a warp drive. Or a warp engine as they call it. You and I know that is not true, though. Will you enlighten them soon, I wonder?
Take your gifts, immigrant.
"And…that should do it," I said as I tightened the last screw and set my captive down. Immediately, the triangular and flat machine took off, proceeding to suck up dirt from the bare floor.
"Okay. Thanks," Anna muttered.
Anna was a rather ugly figure on both the outside and inside. Her face was heavily asymmetric and covered with boils and other blemishes. She was also deliberately unhelpful when I tried to speak with her to understand what her request was for.
The old lady seemed to think that being vague and rude somehow didn't slow the process down. Her loss, really, she'd been forced to clean this entire hallway by hand since the thick Roomba I had just fixed broke down. Some battery acid had leaked and prevented a contact from forming.
I pulled out my tablet from my tool bag and opened the incident report I'd received regarding this issue.
Incident ID: XXXXXXXXX
Details: Cleaning machine does not work
Status: Reported
I updated the status, then added in my own comment.
Status: Closed Complete
Resolution Detail(s): Machine's battery compartment was partly coated with acid from a leaky battery. Battery was identified and taken for disposal and compartment was cleaned out. Machine was successfully activated afterwards with a new battery.
Stowing the tablet away, I made my way back to the elevator, accompanied by Rick and Dong-Gun. They were two of the ship's armsmen, given light armor and autopistols to keep the people of this area in check. I couldn't refuse their company, but I wouldn't want to anyways. The poverty and forced servitude of the inhabitants had made them greedy enough to kill someone who came with shiny technology, but also fearful of the scary men who had full impunity to kill as they wish if someone stepped out of line.
This class of people was known as bondsmen. The lowest of the low, those who had the arduous tasks that no one else wanted to or could complete. Their number was equal to the crew, or so I'd heard. Their entire environment was dirtier and less comfortable, if the few trips I'd made down here by this point were anything to go by. Harsh lighting and slightly out-of-focus air conditioning were an ever-present problem down here, though I'd done my best on the second one.
It was no mistake to say that the less time I spent here, the better for my own safety, even if I sympathized with their plight.
This was, thankfully, the last issue I had to fulfill for this day. There were many more on my list, but a reasonable quota, I felt, was hitting the 30-40 biggest ones each day while trying to follow a first-come, first-served principle.
I made my way back to the Mechanicus quarters and dropped the bag off my shoulder, then stretched it a bit to beat the soreness out. I drank a bit from my water bottle, then sat down at the closest bench, one that I had appropriated for my own work.
I had been informed that knowledge would find itself entering my mind supernaturally, but the side-effects weren't made clear. There weren't that many ideas in my mind initially, but my work in repairing issues ranging from simple maintenance like the Roomba to needing to carefully defuse a major fire hazard in a macro plasma battery had given me glimpses into how they worked.
These ideas were like brain worms, they refused to leave me alone no matter what I did. My thoughts drew back to the haphazard schematics I had drawn in my brain of the countless circuits and machines I had worked on or even just glanced at. I felt compelled to put them on paper.
But glimpses and occasional examination didn't compare to the biggest body of knowledge in my mind, that being a clear-cut, if superficial, view of how the Warp worked.
The Immaterium. The Empyrean. The Sea of Souls.
It was such an interesting thing, a realm filled with purely psychic matter that interacted with our own. Material laws always gave way unless bolstered by another force, meaning incredible feats that people understandably called miraculous or divine were attainable.
No, not attainable. Manufacturable. Controllable. Not easily, of course, but possible nonetheless.
My experience with the astropathic relay led me to the realization that it was the easiest to start experimenting with. There were so many directions I could choose, but they had different payoff times.
The biggest issue, in my opinion, was that a Mechanicus with far more knowledge than its descendant millennia later still didn't have more than a rudimentary understanding of how the Warp worked. It was obviously not an easy task, but progress via iterative improvement seemed stunted as well. At the very least, whoever built the relay for this ship had made the most basic thing possible. It did its job, which was to allow the astropath to look for messages.
It was the equivalent of opening an Internet connection to the entire world, then scanning all possible traffic near you and attempting to find something that fit your requirements.
I had no idea how astropaths worked with this or did their work in general. My ignorance wasn't helped by the decisive refusal I'd been given when I asked to speak with one of the ship's astropaths. I didn't even know who refused, just that it wasn't going to happen.
Oh well. There were things I could try working with.
I sketched and noted my thoughts for the next hour, paying attention to the things my mind was instinctively drawn towards. Actually testing any of this would take a lot of time, but I could get started right now.
++++
"Hey, Acerak!"
"Hey, Nigel," I responded, taking a seat next to him.
Nigel was one of the guards who had escorted me the first time I was on the ship. He was short but fit, his muscles well-defined under that plain white t-shirt he wore. His black hair, like all guards, was cut short due to military regulation. His features were a mix of Caucasian and East Asian, though his skin was mostly white.
We currently sat in one of the cafeterias meant for crew and located on the same floor as my room. The tables were a smooth plastic, with the color and feel of a picnic bench. Each could seat 60 people and stretched across two-thirds of the room's length and one-tenth of its width. Eight such tables were placed here.
Today's evening meal? Canned and unrecognizable fruit, while the main meal was rice and a mild orange curry. For dessert, there was a small sugar cookie, no larger than a third of my palm. Oh, and an alcohol ration.
I handed that last one to him, which he graciously took. "Thanks. So, how was your day?"
"Pretty good. I spent most of my time down in the bondsmen level."
"Ah, that sucks. They didn't try anything, did they?"
"No. Two of the guards down there said they had to come with me."
"Good. That's a no-go zone unless you have weapons, they'll eat you alive if you go down there just like that. I didn't think there was anything worth fixing down there."
"There is, actually. Flickering lights, broken AC, faulty automatic doors, things like that."
"Oh, that makes sense."
"So, what about you? What was your day like?"
"Way more boring. I told you, I just stand around for six hours and make sure nobody tries anything."
"Yeah, I guess if you do that for…what, six years? Yeah, that's gonna be boring." It said something that Nigel was still considered a rookie to the job despite his experience. Others, he told me, had been doing it for 30 and proudly traced their family lineage as glorious guards aboard one of the Emperor's own ships.
We chatted further as we ate, as due to schedule conflicts, we couldn't meet every day like this.
"Hey, you coming to the recreation night tomorrow?" he asked as we dropped off our plates for cleaning and headed out.
"The what?"
"I didn't tell you? Oh, you'll like it. Come to Hangar Beta tomorrow night and find me around 8 p.m. It'll be fun."
"Alright, I'll be there."
For now, however, I planned to return to my room while Nigel went back for his second shift in the engineerium that day.
Back in my own room, I turned on the overhead fluorescent light. The soft yellow filled the room as I removed the robes I had, feeling slightly gross as they stuck to me partially due to sweat. Working with these clothes was annoying as hell, as they trapped heat slowly but steadily.
I glanced at the three others hanging in the small closet in the corner, along with an extra t-shirt and shorts, and decided it was worth it to make a quick laundry run. I grabbed everything and headed off towards the laundromat.
The laundromat, like many other services afforded to those who worked on the ship, was kept near the habitation areas for ease of access. It wasn't self-operated, however. Instead, there were a few crewmembers on-hand to take your laundry and run in how you needed: standard or heavy-duty. In addition, you had to sign into a logbook so they had a record of who used it, when they did, and some other details.
At least it was fast. I had my clothes handed back in 20 minutes, dried and folded. Once I was back to my own room, I put the fresh robes in the closet and almost closed it before I decided to check something.
I opened a bag the size of a backpack and stuck my hand inside, pulling out a cube of some heavy and marble-like metal. I had no idea what it was, and quite frankly, the whole thing was useless to me right now.
The same could be said of the tall machine sitting on the other side of the closet. That one was black and appeared to be built with iron. It came up to about five feet tall and had a vertically sliding door on the front.
The inside was surprisingly deep.
I knew, instinctively, what both of these were. I had known for several days now. The bag would randomly provide me with metals every 24 hours, while the machine made any clothing put inside form-invariant. Put a pair of pants in and those pants would stretch or shrink with the wearer, something the Hulk would no doubt have enjoyed.
As far anyone else would have been able to deduce, they had just appeared here, as if they had always been in the closet, just waiting for someone to open the door.
I went to bed and fell asleep after a few minutes.
The next thing I knew, it was several hours later, and someone was knocking on my door.
"Just a minute," I yelled as I rubbed the tiredness out of my eyes.
Opening the door revealed no one. I looked down and saw something white past my feet into the room itself.
It was a letter. Unfolding it revealed that I was required to appear at Singh's office in 20 minutes. I sighed and considered lying down again, but I knew I'd never get up if I did that. So, I got ready for the day.
Singh was thankfully already in her office when I arrived, but I could tell she had just come from elsewhere as she settled into her seat.
"Ma'am," I acknowledged.
"Magos. Sit down," she said with a gesture. I took the offered seat.
"So…what's going on?"
"We will get to that. Tell me first about your work. How difficult has it been?"
"Not very," I admitted. "I had some trouble initially as I needed to find all the tools the previous Mechanicus personnel used, but once I found them, nothing has been too problematic."
"Good, good. And I saw you closed almost all the tickets you were sent, and no one complained, so that is also proof of what you are saying," she added, her head bobbing slightly.
"Well, that's good," I said with a laugh. "I'd hate to think I wasn't doing something correctly."
The silence dragged on for a few moments. "So-"
"Hmm?"
I cleared my throat. "So, are you just checking up on me, or did something happen, or…"
"Yes, something did happen. I met with the First Lieutenant earlier. He said that we were preparing to depart."
"Oh, really! That's interesting. Where are we going?"
"That I didn't ask. But I wanted to make sure that there were no issues preventing us from leaving. Have you looked at the engines, the warp drive, all that?"
"Yes, I've looked at all of them. There was nothing that would prevent the ship from actually moving, but I did find some small issues here and there. They're fixed now, but the biggest was with the warp drive. The power wasn't perfectly synchronized, which meant it might stutter for a few moments when active. That shouldn't be a problem anymore as I replaced the partially burnt-out cables, but I can't test it."
"Did you write that up?"
"I did. Do you have the tickets available on your own tablet? I can find it."
She handed it to me and let me search. I scrolled several times until the right report appeared. "Here, this one."
Her eyes glanced over it. "You didn't mention the issue you just explained."
"I said I replaced a power cable to ensure synchronization."
"No, I mean the rest of it. If we have the same problem later, I want to know what you did about it."
"Oh, okay. Do you want me to-?"
"Yes, fix it."
"Sure. Is there anything else you want to discuss?"
"…No, there is not. You can go about your day."
As I stood up, she spoke up. "Actually, one thing. It's not a problem, I am just curious. Why do you call it the Mechanicus, not the Mechanicum?"
I blinked.
Oh, shit.
"My mistake, you're right. The Mechanicum," I replied, managing to keep my voice calm.
POV: First Lieutenant Ramirez
"Congratulations," a voice hissed at me.
I looked Navigator Michaelangelo dead in his eyes and responded, "Thank you."
It upset the Achelieux bastard that someone, anyone, would be unphased by his appearance and voice. Like most of his kind, he had pale skin akin to an artist's canvas. His fingers were noticeably long and had no fingernails, just flesh. Unlike most of his kind, however, he filled out his typical bulky black dress too much. For being so large, he certainly did not have a voice like one would expect. If the few navigators I had met were anything to go by, the high-pitched squeal was commonplace among their kind.
"Indeed. Congratulations on your marriage."
I nodded to Lin, the ship's astropath, who sat next to him. "Thank you."
The two resident psykers were polar opposites in all ways. Lin cut a slender figure that was wrapped in a rotating set of bright and beautiful sleeveless clothes that her people had typically worn; I believe the word was "cheongsam". Her voice was firm and full in a way Michaelangelo's could never be, properly feminine as well as opposed to the navigator's unmasculine whispers.
The others echoed this sentiment. They were similar in stature to me, each responsible for a vital component of the ship's functioning.
A total of seven people including myself waited around the rectangular wooden table with rounded corners for this meeting to start. Thankfully, we did not have to wait long. Captain Abraxis entered the room, flanked by two guards. At his arrival, we all stood and made the Aquila. He responded in-kind.
As fitting of my position, I was placed to his right.
"Sit down, sit down, all of you," he ordered. "You've all been told that we've been given a mission. I want everyone to tell me what our operational status is. Navigator, you start."
The psyker opposite me opened his mouth. "I am prepared to guide the vessel through the Warp."
Lin went next. "The astropathic relay is repaired, meaning I can perform as ordered."
Next to her was Hubble, someone who I knew next to nothing about since he (or possibly she) kept to themselves. "Real-space communication abilities are working fine."
Harry Truesdale was the up-and-coming Helmsman and the closest to my own background. "Engines are operational, and we have full mobility."
Tub Pov Laing was the Weapons Officer who sat on my side of the table, in charge of making sure both the guns and gun crews were ready when needed. "All weapons report active, though we have not yet replenished our shelled ammunition. Our current reserve measures to 48%."
"All attack craft are accounted for, but we can only field 30% of them due to a lack of trained crews," came the tense words of Zaphara Payne, a woman with coal-like skin and more tightly wound-up than a mechanical clock's springs.
"The crew are free of any lingering traumas, and they report no issues in the hull or systems," I spoke up finally.
"Sounds like the ship is ready to set sail once more. Good!" the captain replied. "Helmsman, prepare to take us to the Mandeville point. Navigator, chart us a course to the Tarantulon system. I want us moving in three hours. Dismissed! Ramirez, you stay."
"Excuse me, captain," Laing nervously interjected. "But we do not have the ammunition for a serious fight."
"I'm not expecting there to be any fight. The traitors are in full retreat and none of them had any reason to go there. Anymore dumb questions?"
No one took the bait. They all filed out, leaving me and the captain alone. "What can I do for you, sir?"
He sighed and clasped his hands as if praying, his body leaning forward until his head rested on his thumbs. "It's Wilhelm."
Wilhelm was the captain's son and also a captain. His ship was a light cruiser, befitting a newly appointed officer. They were each other's only remaining family, the rest dead once the traitors had brought destruction to Terra.
"What happened?" I asked.
"He got some fucking idiot to officiate a 'marriage' while he was away from here. I only found out from Calamar. He won't even talk to me, my own son refused to listen to me!"
"…I'm sorry to hear that, sir. He is a bigger fool than you or I thought. What would you have me do?"
"You try talking to him. Please. Anything that might help him see reason."
"Alright, sir. I will. In fact…I'll even go in person."
I clap the captain's back softly in consolation before leaving. Once I was out of the room, I headed straight for the bridge. With any luck, Truesdale would be there.
As it turned out, he was. I beckoned him over.
"What is it?"
"I need to speak with Wilhelm. In person. Can you bring the ship along a path that makes that possible?"
"Why?"
"It's the captain's business and he doesn't want anyone hearing about it."
Truesdale looked confused, but indifference won out. "Fine. You'll get at most 20 minutes. Head to Hangar Alpha in…one hour."
++++
True to his word, the optimal departing point was reached exactly an hour later. I was sitting within one of the few transports we had on-board, watching through a viewport as the Spear rapidly became smaller. Past it, I could make out Terra itself, along with the small figure of Mars in the distance.
I could even see some dots moving oddly against Terra's skies. Ships belonging to the Imperialis Armada for the most part, I assumed. The loyal Space Marines were out in full force, hell-bent on sending the bastards to a rightful death.
Fuck Lupercal. Fuck him and everyone who betrayed the Imperium.
"Sir, we'll be arriving in two minutes. The Callade's Dream acknowledged us and has given us clearance to land.
The landing was a bit bumpy, but I stepped off unruffled into the hangar. Two senior armsmen were waiting for me to bring me to Wilhelm. "Doing well, Willis?"
Willis was one of the oldest armsmen I'd ever known. According to him, he'd been serving since half-way through the Great Crusade. "Just fine, sir. The captain is waiting for you in his quarters, we'll get you there swiftly."
"And your family?"
"They're doing well. My son just got accepted into one of the navy's schools."
"I look forward to seeing him command his own vessel one day."
"I do too, but I wonder if I'll see it happen," Will replied with his signature cavalier attitude to death.
In any case, four of my precious minutes were taken by the need for transportation via small automobile, meaning I would only get 12 minutes in total. Willis knocked on the door. "Captain? We have First Mate Ramirez from the Sanguine Spear here for you."
"Send him in," came a slightly muffled response.
Once the door was open, I stepped through and waited for it to close behind me.
Ahead stood the captain's son, a spitting image of his father at that age from the pictures I'd seen. I could already see how the black hair might turn white and gray, where a thick mustache would grow, how his skin might start to sag as well.
"Ramirez!" He greeted me warmly, coming over to strongly embrace me.
"Wilhelm!" I returned with equal force and a grin. "How are you?"
"Doing good!" He held his left hand up, wiggling his fingers. Specifically, his left ring finger, which had a golden ring on it.
"You got married, finally?"
"Yes! Oh, I wish you could have been there! It was small, but some of her family came and we made it a real party! I danced and danced even after my legs started hurting. I hit the bed that night and promptly passed out."
"That sounds wonderful. You'll have to introduce me at some point."
"I will, certainly. She's off on Terra right now, but she would have loved to meet you!"
"Hmm." The smile dropped from my face. "You know why I'm here, right?"
"The old man?" Wilhelm's face was apologetic. "We both know he wouldn't get over it easily."
"No, you're right about that. He desperately wants you to speak with him. Maybe he thinks he can convince you to divorce her."
"That's not happening. Our family may have followed tradition, but they're dead and I'm not beholden to them any longer. In fact, I think I'll let him stew in it a bit longer."
"Just not too long, I hope. Or with my name being mentioned."
"Don't worry, I can keep a secret," he said with a wink and cocky smirk.
"As long as you're clear on that, I've passed his message along as he wanted." I glanced at a clock on the wall. "I need to get going now, unfortunately."
"So soon?"
"Yes, we've been apparently given a mission. The Spear is supposed to visit the Tarantulon system and make an arc of visits as it returns. Something to assess where their loyalty lies, I suppose."
He grimaced. "…I hate that any of this is necessary. It still doesn't feel…real, does it?"
"Treachery never does. But the Emperor's own sons and their legions? That feels even less real. Still, we have to remind them that their actions will not stand." I stepped back. "Goodbye, Wilhelm. We'll speak again in a few months, hopefully."
++++
"He refused to speak with me!?"
"Wilhelm is…irrational at the moment. I think he's drunk on getting what he wants, even if it is no good for him," I explained.
The captain buried his hands in his face. "Emperor save me, please! Someone help my son see reason!"
"Please try to put it out of your mind for now, captain. We will be gone and unable to speak with him for a long time. I think," I whispered. I leaned, the captain unconsciously emulating my stance, "I think he may be more amenable to speaking once he returns.
"I hope so."
I stepped back. "…is that all, captain?"
"Huh? Uh, yes. You have command for now."
"Understood, sir, I'll ensure we get to Tarantulon without any delays or issues. Please rest."
++++
"First Lieutenant on deck!"
It pleased my heart to be announced in such a manner when I stepped onto bridge. Over three dozen men and women made the Aquila for me. "At ease," I declared with a returned Aquila.
I took my normal position standing near the captain's chair on an elevated part of the bridge. From here, the rest of the officers and personnel could be observed, along with an uncut view of the part of space the ship was aiming towards. Only a few stars could be seen, however, since the lighting hid the weaker ones.
"Permission to approach, First Lieutenant?"
I turned to my left and saw Truesdale. "Granted. What is it?"
He approached me. "Is something the matter with the captain? This is our first mission in six months and he's not here?"
"He's not feeling well." When Truesdale didn't leave, I turned back to him. "Is something else troubling you?"
"…Why did we get this mission? Sending a cruiser to investigate a random world is utter madness! It doesn't make any sense – this is work for a light cruiser! I looked into it, apparently this system we're going to wasn't even in the traitors' paths by a longshot, the odds of them having rebelled is quite low!"
I let the silence fill a few moments as he took a breath. "Helmsman Truesdale, who is the current leader of the Imperialis Armada?"
"I…I don't know, sir."
"There isn't one. There have been some practical promotions, but the only one formally authorized to dictate orders to us is the Lord Commander, and he is out chasing the traitors to their deaths. Speaking of the Lord Commander, have you heard any of his speeches since the fighting was finished?"
"No, sir."
"Hmm. You should see if you can find any records, they're very helpful in predicting what is likely to happen next. If my interpretation is correct, we're all in for a very serious shake-up of how things are done. One thing he has repeatedly emphasized is preventing anyone but the Lord Commander from casually ordering every aspect of the Imperium's military might. What does it mean?"
He was silent for a moment. "Sorry, sir, I don't understand."
"That's alright, it doesn't mean anything. Or it means everything. Who knows? My point is that there is change coming, and with the shake-up, there would necessarily be many opportunities to see oneself raised up or see rivals put down. Of note, there are three individuals who I think believe this.
I put up a finger. "The first is Admiral LeBray, who I know put down several of the traitor vessels before the siege with his own battleship, to say nothing of what his squadron accomplished."
I put up another finger. "The second is Lady Admiral Maratov, who has strong ties with Terra's elites."
A third finger went up. "And then there is Jahtoya Harrison, a fearsome woman who has a long and consistent record for delivering stunning victories from the cockpit of a Starhawk Bomber. She is a popular figure, practically a legend amongst a vast number of pilots and senior officers."
"These people and undoubtedly many more are looking to be rewarded for one thing or another, and part of being noticed by the people who will do the rewarding is demonstrating a commitment to the Imperium in these troubled times by solving problems proactively. Our captain is friends with Admiral Penketh, who is likely in one of LeBray's social circles. Therefore, I suspect this is LeBray trying to add to his record and demonstrate once again that he would be a competent leader in a higher position. That it involves wasting a cruiser's worth of resources is not relevant."
I internally smirked at Truesdale's dumbfounded face. I didn't blame him for not seeing the politics of the Imperialis Armada, that sort of thing just didn't come to some people. That didn't mean I couldn't enjoy the cruel revelation. "Does that answer your question, Helmsman?"
He snapped his mouth shut. "Y-yes, sir! Thank you for answering my questions."
"Then return to your post."
"Aye."
I wonder if he would have enjoyed another lesson in how relevant that kind of decision-by-politics was even at our level. Or at least, to me.
The captain and his ancestors were homosexual by tradition and unrepentantly in love with the idea and themselves. As a benefit of being aligned with the Selenite gene-cult, their family was allowed to create humans with hand-picked traits. The traditional choice was for each family member to give their own blood to the cult at a certain point in their life and be given a clone of themselves to marry. Any children would be made using the parent's own blood.
But something had gone wrong with Wilhelm. Perhaps it was a mistake, or the family had slighted the gene cults, but he confided in me once that he was not purely attracted to men. He was confused over why he alone seemed to find both men and women pleasant to look at. Nor was he that interested in seeing himself literally in another's face.
With that revelation, I knew I had my way in. I encouraged him in secret to pursue the girls he liked until he found one worth marrying. I helped him sneak a message or two when his family had punished him once they found out.
I hadn't planned on being successful so suddenly. In fact, I would have preferred Wilhelm didn't marry whoever he did. The constant tension between him and his father had been excellent in stressing the latter.
My captain was a man with many vices. Eating rich food constantly, smoking addictive substances, and eventually ceasing exercise altogether once he joined the social circles his rank provided had strained his body to the point he was at now. Not close to dead, but certainly lacking as many years as he otherwise might have had. To my luck, he even found his heart throbbing painfully every time we entered the Warp, and if his comments were anything to go by, the pain took a long time to reside.
Right now, the captain would be drowning himself in liquor before passing out once more. If I maintained the status quo, that would be his fate for most of his remaining days.
I would have his chair soon enough.
每周推薦票狀態
-- 推薦票
榜單 
-- 推薦票