First Contact

How does it work? Do I look like a jumpdrive scientist to you? No, I don't. Who the fuck knows how it works, you just press the button and go. Look, buddy, do you wanna buy it or not? - Tahksma'an, Lanaktallan Junker

"You get further with a kind word and an assault rifle than with a kind word alone" - Major Maximillian Payne - Fifth Republic Outer Rim territorial dispute

"Captain, who the hell is this guy?" the navigator, a Hamaroosan named Kelmeran, asked as he bustled up next to Captain VoLagum as the Captain walked down the main corridor of the Uwu Wuzzat.

Captain Lag just signified weary disinterest. "A passenger. He wants us to take him to a planet out in the Long Dark, wait to see if he needs us for a few weeks, then head back or on to the next stop," he said. He stopped and scratched the back of his neck.

His stress-rash was easing up.

"The environmental controls down in the berths we use for storage are working again. They've never worked the whole three years I've been with you," Kelmeran said. He reached toward the Captain to pinch him then stopped himself, pulling a short gripping stick from one cargo pocket and wrapping two hands around it. "The PA system past strut twenty-two is working again. Detainee's whiskey filled milkers, he's even got the grav-lifts working again and you said those haven't worked since before you purchased The Uwu."

Captain Lag nodded. "He said it's just basic fixes."

"We've been in dock repeatedly over the last few years and not a single tech has been able to get any of that to work, but this guy spends four hours in the computer core operations center and has stuff that we'd even forgotten was installed working," Kelmeran said. He squeezed the gripping stick. "Are we paying him to take him to this planet?"

Captain Lag signified humor and stopped at the turbo-lift. "I know, right?"

"Why's he doing it all?" Kelmeran asked.

"He said he didn't want the ship to explode when we entered Ghostspace or Shadespace," the Captain said, stepping into the elevator when the doors whooshed open. Kelmeran followed, watching as the Captain tapped the glowing icon for the bridge.

"What kind of robot is that he has following him around? I don't think I've ever seen one like that," Kelmeran said. "Its got pointed corners, sharp edges, uncushioned tracks, and those graspers look like they could hurt someone. I don't recognize any of the runic work on it, either."

The Captain just gave a non-committal motion as he spoke. "Our passenger calls him Wally. Said he's a reclaimator/template creation scanner/creation engine combination," before Kemeran could asked the Captain continued. "Watched it 'eat' a bunch of damaged cabling, take about thirty seconds, and pull out brand new cabling that plugged right in."

Kelmeran frowned. "That's... that's a pretty powerful, dangerous, and probably expensive thing to have follow you around. I mean, it looks like he dug it out of a landfill. Where would you even get such a thing?"

"BobCo?" Captain Lag suggested with at slight trace of humor.

"Naw, it would be painted red and blue stripes with a big BobCo sales hologram following it," the navigator answered, snorting with humor.

The door opened up, revealing the bridge.

The Terran was on his back, the console front casing laying next to him. He had tools laying on the casing, was half under the console, and was doing something inside. His strange hat was laying next to the tools, looking worn and battered.

"You cannot put Quernian logic circuits inline with Boolean and Quantum Logic Systems," the Terran was saying. There was a cracking noise. "Finally. Of course, someone welded the case of this jacked up core to the support," he held out a hand. "Variable torque spreader," he said, dropping a wrench onto the casing on the floor.

The robot grabbed a tool and slapped it into the human's hand, then moved the wrench.

The Hashenesh just stared, holding the shotgun in one hand and a fizzybrew in the other.

Captain Lag had to admit the Hashenesh's stare was slightly disconcerting.

"Come on, come on, you piece of junk," the Terran said.

There was another loud crack.

"Gotcha," the Terran said. He pushed out a small sealed box and the tool. "Reclaim the box. It's trashed. Looks like a jumpspace power surge blew it out because whoever installed it didn't connect the grounding wire to anything but another black box computing system."

The robot whistled, grabbed the box, opened its front, and slammed it shut. It shivered for a second as it took the spreader and set it on the panel.

The Terran requested a piece of hardware, right down to the model number.

After about ten seconds the robot pulled it out, the hardware still steaming, and handed it to the Terran.

The Hashenesh just watched.

Two more boxes got replaced and the Terran slid out slightly. "Smoke test time."

There was a beep and the entire bridge lit up. Consoles that had never worked coming online. Lights that had been turned off due to flickering came back glowing steadily. The main screen came on with a crimson border and locked at 480p. It had a slight sheen that took Captain Lag a second to realize it was mylar coated.

"There we go," the Terran said, picking up the console front and placing it into the tracks. He shifted it slightly, banged it with the heel of his hand, then twisted the catches. He stood up, wiped off his hands, then pulled a fizzybrew out of his pocket and cracked the can as he put his hat on his head.

The Captain noted that the human's face was deeply graven with lines, he had unshaven stubble on his chin and cheeks, and white streaks in his hair. His gun-metal gray eyes were slightly squinted, like the lights were too bright.

Once the hat was in place, only his eyes were visible.

The robot put the majority of the tools in a carrying bag mag-tapped to its side, then tossed the rest into the box that made up the majority of its body and vibrated for a second.

"All of this was based on one bad component?" the navigator asked.

The Terran just stared for a moment. "No," he said, his voice sharp and slightly incredulous. "I've spent nearly an hour rerunning conduits, data-trunks, and replacing blown out or improperly hooked up components," he slapped the console. "You've been running without a Damage Control Command console for Daxin knows how long."

"Oh," the navigator said, looking down, scuffing his feet to bleed off tension.

"Eh, don't worry about it. You just happened to come up when the magic happened, so it looks like all I did was wander up here and replace a single component," the Terran said, his voice softening.

Kelmeran gave an expression of relief as the Terran moved over to the wall and pulled a piece of plating off just by running his finger around the edge.

Captain Lag swore for a second that the Terran's finger was covered in glitter as his finger passed over the mag-tap locks. The Terran grabbed the panel and set it on the floor and then stared at the revealed components.

They were all dark.

"We'll... leave you to it," Captain Lag said.

The Captain and the navigator went into the lift as the Terran started laughing. A wild, crazed sound with a slight brittle edge.

"Oh, thank Menhit, the hypercomplicated complex, and difficult to manufacture q-bit system shorted out and saved the dime store fuse. Perfect engineering," he laughed.

The door closed, cutting off the laughter.

"Are you sure about this, Captain?" Kelmeran asked.

The Captain shrugged. "The repair personnel on the station said they can't find or fix the problem. We're stuck here and I was beginning to fear we'd have to sell the ship for scrap or mass. If the Terran can get us moving again, I'm willing to take the chance."

"If you're sure."

"I'm not, but fuck me if I can't take a joke."

-----

What bare-bones crew he had was at their stations as the Uwu headed out along the course set by the station astro-control. The Chief (and only) Engineer was in the engine room, the navigator/pilot was at his station, jumpspace control was at his station, weapons/defense was at her station.

All twelve of the crew were at their stations.

The Terran and his two companions were in their berths. The Captain had checked with the camera. The two biologicals were asleep and the robot was plugged into the wall.

"We've got a green light," Kelmeran said.

"Go to ghostspace protocols," the Captain ordered.

"Ghostspace protocols engaged," Engineering said.

The lights went red as the ship's computers shifted the lighting.

"Go to jumpspace," the Captain ordered.

"Going to jumpspace," Kelmeran said. He pressed the button to inform the Chief Engineer that the ship would be entering jumpspace, got back the green light, and hit the big red button.

The ship shuddered as it went to jumpspace.

For the next several days the routine was basically keep one or two people on watch on the bridge, the Chief Engineer sleeping in the engineering space, and the Captain sitting in his office reading a book. The Terran seemed perfectly content to eat his meals in the mess and stay in his room drinking with the Hashenesh and the robot.

Twenty-nine days into a five week trip the Captain was woken from a sound sleep by the alarm. He rolled over in his bed and slapped the communicator.

"What?" He asked, sitting up.

"Hellspace incursions. They're multiplying rapidly," Kelmeran said. His voice sounded stressed. "On manual control."

The ship groaned and felt like it twisted.

"On my way. Don't crash my ship," Captain Lag said. He grabbed his tunic, pulled it on, then grabbed his pants and hopped toward the door, pulling them on.

The ship started shuddering and groaning just as Captain Lag grabbed his shoes.

He took off running down the hallway, using the stairwell and jumping down the steps.

The door whooshed open and the bridge was revealed.

The main screen showed a 2D representation of the ship and the rapidly expanding and multiplying Hellspace breaches. There were lines either above or below the icons, showing how far above or below the ship the breaches were.

As he moved to his seat another dozen Hellbreaches appeared.

"How bad?" Captain Lag asked.

"KALKI'S CLANGING BALLS!" Kelmeran swore, his hands moving rapidly across the board.

The ship suddenly stood on it's nose and leaned, the grav generator struggling to keep up with the rapid course change.

There was a distant WHANG that made the hull ring.

"How close?" Captain Lag asked.

"We might have grazed it. Tenth of a light minute, at the most," Kelmeran said. He was holding onto his board tight with his gripping hands.

A beeping noise from the previously non-functional damage control panel caught the Captain's attention as the ship suddenly felt like it had flipped upside down, stood on its nose, and leaned to starboard all at the same time.

Between strut fifty two and fifty three, deck five, a red dot was flashing.

Kelmeran kept swearing, kept pulling the ship through torturous movements. The engines were laboring hard enough the entire ship was thrumming and several times there was the sound of stressed or rending metal.

The communications panel went out in a shower of sparks as it imploded. The secondary navigation station's main LCD screen blew out and caught on fire.

"All hands, all hands, get in suits," Captain Lag ordered over the PA system, suddenly glad the Terran had fixed it.

"BRACE FOR IMPACT!" Kelmeran suddenly shouted.

Crazily, the ship felt like it lunged forward.

Captain Lag went rigid, his brain shutting off from the stress.

For a second it looked like fire was sweeping through the bridge. Computers imploded, caught on fire, suddenly grew massive tumors of circuitry and flesh. Runic patterns were carved across the bulkheads by the wave of fire that was only a finger-width wide.

The entire ship shuddered and jerked.

The DCC board was lit up with amber and red dots. Schematics started appearing in red, amber, green, and blue. It was beeping frantically.

It was all Captain Lag could stare at.

The ship felt, for a moment, like it was suddenly stuck in amber.

Then there was a great sound, like iron doors bursting open. Then the rattle of chains, the squeal of overstressed iron, then the sound of shattering ice.

The ship lunged forward.

The main screen, what was working, showed the Hellbreaches falling behind the ship as it kept moving forward. The X/Y/Z of the ship was rapidly changing even though the heading and speed didn't shift.

"Jumpcore is still running, we're still in jumpspace," Kelmeran said. He put his face against the cool plastic of the pilot's station. "We got through the last one before it fully formed. It appeared less than a light second ahead of us."

Captain Lag's brain started working.

"Have engineering run a check on the systems. Let me know what got damaged," Captain Lag said.

He reached out and touched several lights that were flashing that had never worked before.

One of them obviously tied him into the ship's communication network.

He could tell by the fact that Loadmaster Riktikek was screaming.

"SHADES! WE'VE GOT SHADES IN THE SHIP!"

The scream was picked up and carried by the PA, echoing through the ship.

In his berth, Herod looked up at the speaker on the wall, lifting his boots off the desk and standing up. Dana'ahsh gave a long-suffering sigh and got up, not bothering to change out of his red pajamas with a puppy print of them or changing out of his bunny slippers. Wally gave a triumphant beeping noise as his eyes blinked and he unplugged himself from the wall.

"Well, shit," Herod said, shifting his gunbelts as he walked toward the door. "Here we go again."