Snippet #1836191

The blue-white light of Tankred’s harness mounted torch caused the back panel walls of the nav computer maintenance duct to dazzle with shadows and highlights. The cramped confines of the duct caused even Tankred to bruise his shoulders and he found himself wondering what the manufacturer was thinking designing the ship in such a way that even a Gambonian could not fit in the maintenance shafts. Then again maybe this was a remodel done after commission which would make the ship owner at the time particularly dense for the same reasons. Whatever the reason getting to the positronic power supply had been a task in it of itself. Repairing it in these confines proved to be a whole different level of difficult, not to mention hazardous.

Tankred was rejoining the last of the local sensor feeds after dealing with the power supply. He decided that was the last thing he was going to do before making his intentions clear to the captain, or captains, or however this ship was run! From what he had seen in his very brief time aboard the Duchess so far it was more of what was referred to as a ‘freakship’ in the Gambonian Royal Space Forces. A ship formed of the spares, cast-offs and likely stolen parts of a number of other vessels built around a single core frame. ‘Freakships’ were not constructed as such, parts are added and removed over time as new supplies become available at yards that had some very lax laws, and workers with empty bank accounts. Freakships were hard to do work on because not every system agreed with one another and managing the pure volume of sensor feed from conflicting systems induced what was called “information paralysis”. With so much information being output from every sensor of every system and no thread handler to filter out the “noise” there is no way to know what’s going on with the ship. No biological based being, no collection of them, not even a slaved control system could handle that kind of data overflow and manage to streamline it down into useful output. Only the multi-tasking, adaptive machine-mind of an artificial intelligence could control the most basic functions of complicated ‘freakships’ let alone reduce its copious emissions, manage the impulse and run damage control.

That or the captain, officers and crew wouldn’t have any idea what was going on inside their ship which was dangerous in the best of cases and suicidal for most.

Using his shoulders to shimmy his way through the opposite half-torus of the maintenance shaft that circled the navcom station, Tankred made his way back towards the access hatch. After ten minutes of shoulder scraping, the Gambonian emerged head first from the hatch and somersaulted out, landing feet first on the deck. He stood up and cracked his back and neck; those cramped confines would give anybody, even a Ridikan, the back ache of a lifetime.

Best keep this part of the ship in good shape if I don’t want to be stuck in that duct tighter than the Princess of Ilekia. Tankred snickered mischievously at that last thought. But who could blame him, he was a sailor after all.

Making his way toward the bridge, Tankred clasped the barrel of his pistol in his right fist and held it high above his head and his left hand did so as well. His steps were slow and deliberate, he didn’t want to give anybody who had a case of the shakes given their near death experience a reason to twitch on the trigger finger. He was surprised to find the airlock open and could hear voices issuing from inside some in an escalated tone of voice that indicated argument. He also heard reference to ‘treasure’. That gave the Gambonian pause. Figuring it to be advantageous if armed with the best information possible before entering an unknown scenario, Tankred waited until the voices calmed. Once everything appeared quiet, Tankred took a deep breath and walked through the door and saw maybe seven people of probably an equal number of races before him. He didn’t really bother to count or assume any one of them had authority on this ship so he just spoke to the group.

“I hear at least one of you is looking for me. I also know that one of you is in charge here. Seeing as how I nearly singlehandedly kept us aloft, I’d say I deserve to know who’s who up here.” The Gambonian demanded as he scanned the odd and no doubt dangerous group amassed here.