Arrived in the Ghandi system. 186-1105 imperial. July 5, 5628 Earth year.
Hamilton, your alarm goes off and you have time for most things except you only grab an apple and a donut. Galley is closed right now.
Hamilton meets up in the engineering station and the Chief is there as is Mr Tsu who also just got there. He's only met him a couple of times during a shift change. He’s a bit odd…
The Chief says, “Ok, that was a good catch on the bad valve Hamilton. But now, we need to go in there and find what the issue is and fix it all right and proper. Ramon, you’ve been in there the most. Take Hamilton into the tanks and find out what the deal is. Keep me updated. And have someone at the lock to monitor everything just in case.”
After he leaves Ramon says, “Dammit!! I fuckin hate crawling around in there. OK. we need to go down to deck 1 and into the access hatch.” He uses his com link, “Freedo, (Alfredo) you busy? I need someone to watch a hatch. Me and the FNG are going into the tank. He got a light on the last jump and may have found our mystery problem.”
Alfredo replies, “Yeah, OK. As long as it doesn’t take too long. I got stuff to do and I’m in the rotation for the station.”
“Shit.” He says as he turns to you. “We’ll probably be in the last group depending on how this goes. Come on, we need to go the air lock and get a suit and then go in the tank.”
Hamilton and Ramon get their vacc suits and then meet at the hatch on deck one.
“This is a service hatch for just this sort of thing. Rarely comes up but meh. Let’s do a suit check and then go in the tank.”
Alfredo checks the seals on Hamilton's suit and pats him on the head and gives the thumbs up. Though Hamilton can faintly here him say, “CHECK YOUR SUIT COM” it was off.
Ramon goes into the hatch first. It cycles and then Hamilton goes in.
It’s a fairly large space with a maze of walls. Anti surge baffles. As they go walking along Ramon stops. He points to something on the wall. “Intercom repeater. Looks a bit damaged. I’m not getting anything from Freedo. Go back a bit and tell him to send Bill in here to look at it. Unless you got a signal from him and you can tell him from here. Hmm, and ask the Chief if they’ve taken a sample lately. This tank looks funky for some reason. I wonder if we got a bad batch of fuel. Something in it could have messed up the filters and the pump. “
There is no fuel in the tanks. But there is some sort of residue. You get an acknowledgement from Afredo and catch back up to Ramon. He seems kind of puzzled by something. You basically slither to this one section and he says,”I already checked the intakes to the auxiliary pumps. Just getting to the main one.” He’s fiddling around and he goes, “Ah HA!! well, this isn’t good. Someone may have been trying to give us a hand but didn’t work out that way. See?” he holds up a hand…
Lucky for Hamilton, he didn't puke in his space suit. Seems they’ve found a number of body parts.
Ramon calls the bridge and gives them the news. After half an hour, they are joined by a customs inspector and Bill. The inspector is securing the scene until someone from the SPA shows up. Space Port Authority. A customs shuttle was coming out anyway. But, one of their guys got detailed to the scene and the rest are going over the usual manifest red tape. As Hamilton gets back to the air lock, he runs into 2 guys from the SPA, someone from the Ministry of Jusctice, two from the Scout Service, and a Ministry of Commerce official. They need to determine what happened and who it was. None of the crew is unaccounted for. So, who is it? Where did they come from? What happened?
The Ministry of justice interviews Hamilton. He is agent Darcin. He is looking over Hamilton's crew file. “You haven’t been on board ship long enough to have had a part in this. What can you tell me about the crew?”
“normal. a little weird but who isn’t?”
Agent Darcin continues, “Yeah well, can’t argue with that. We don’t have an ID on the body yet. And it will be a while before we get an autopsy. In as much as your ship will want to head out asap, we want to rule out a potential homicide. In which case, it will be up to the MOC to see if it was an industrial accident and go from there. “
A lot of it is just red tape. They just need to question everyone. Meanwhile, since most of the crew will be tied up with the investigation. Hamilton gets to clean the fuel tank and replace the fuel filter!!
On the plus side, he and Ramon manage to clean the tank and change the fuel filter. It takes a good long while. But, no one is going anywhere until the autopsy comes through and all the crew are cleared to leave. The investigators are also talking to the passengers. Needless to say, there is a lot of paperwork involved. Much to the enjoyment of the captain and first mate.
One of the police is in a vac suit near the hatch in case Hamilton and Ramon find anything while cleaning or fixing the filter. They didn’t find all the parts to this guy. While cleaning, Hamilton finds, a knife!
Does it have any distinguishing marks or features?
Combat knife? Kitchen knife?
Butter knife?
after he looks it over, Hamilton gives it to the police.
It’s a small stiletto.
Hamilton lends a hand and was successful in assisting in the repairs. They had to grab another person from another shift as well. but everything is back online.
big enough to do damage.
The cop asks, “Where did you find it? Was there anything else nearby? Can you take me to where it was?” He pulls out a small camera.
Autopsy comes back, definitely a homicide! Dead over a month ago. Now for the fun…
As Hamilton heads off with the police, he runs into Bill in the corridor. He comments, “Were did you find Karl’s knife?”
He explains it belongs to Karl Neuberger. They guy Hamilton replaced and Bill’s former cabinmate. He left the ship over a month ago. On Efate he thinks. Not sure…
So the question is still, who is the dead body?
Consequently, Bill is going to be stuck here while the inquest continues. The ship will be clear to leave soon. Bill will be able to meet back up with the ship when it hits Fosey Mora. But that’s going to be roughly 20 weeks away. He’ll meet up with one of the other company ships on a different run until then. Meanwhile, the ship will be down an engineer. M’lex, from first shift, can monitor it from his station while in transit. But either Hamilton or Anna Dalaks from third shift will need to be on call when it’s time to actually jump. Or, Hamilton can just go to first shift and the chief will be the jump engineer on second shift. They are still thinking on that. Needless to say, Bill is not happy.
Oh yeah, with all the fun with the fuel system, Hamilton only gets 4 hours on the space station. But, he’ll get to have a beer with the first team.
Pilot- Leoso Te Ara
Power plant engineer - M’Lex (vargr)
you
M drive engineer - Ramon Tsu
Jr Purser Aldo Fazio
Through a quirk in scheduling (that I’ll have to fix) you are also the security responder if something comes up. Ramon can monitor the J drive if you get called away.
Eventually, Hamilton meets up with the rest at a bar called, The Black Hole.
He orders a drink after he meets up with everyone
after a while of sitting and schmoozing he asks, “Does anyone know what’s going on with the piece of whatever we found? is it Actually a person?”
Leso, the shift pilot stands up and says, “ Well, normally, we completely harass the FNG. But, we will forgo the usual introductory period of hazing and just move on the the normal period of hazing.”
laughs all around.
“Seriously, you’ve proven to be rather a decent sort of chap. Drink up. But not too much. We do have duty at some point hahaha”
In response to your question.
“Yes. It was a human alright. No idea who or what happened. But the report says it was a homicide. So, who is he and who killed him and when and all that sort of thing is still on the table.”
“Maybe Bill knows something.”
“Bill can’t even remember anyone’s name for zorquan’s sake!”
“I thought your name was Hamston?”
“Wasn’t it Hampton?”
“Well, he could always be, Hamster…”
guess what his new nickname is?
Turns out, everyone on this watch has a nickname.
Leso is Evil. As “the leso of two evils”
M’lex is laxing.
Ramon Tsu is chew or Chuey.
Aldo Leonardo Fazio is ALF
Funny thing, Bill never had a nickname. He was just Bill. Hamilton was his roommate. He was quiet. And he never really saw him. (which is probably the best kind of roommate to have) These guys, seem to be a lot of fun. They have a sense of camaraderie. Mostly because, it’s the crappy shift, and there are no senior officers around. Most of those are on the second watch. The first mate is around but that is sporadically.
It was Karl’s knife. According to Bill anyway. Karl left the ship at Roup Regina. About a month before Hamilton arrived. No one saw him when the ship came back through Roup. It’s the only system that the ship visits twice. So everyone figures he moved on to whatever. His contract was up and he could have stayed but he seemed to want to get somewhere. The body is still unidentified. It will probably be some time. A DNA profile is being sent that area but it will be over a month before it becomes spread out to all the law enforcement agencies. And another month before they get a reply.
Funny thing, Bill never had a nickname. He was just Bill. Hamilton was his roommate. He was quiet. And he never really saw him. (which is probably the best kind of roommate to have) These guys, seem to be a lot of fun. They have a sense of camaraderie. Mostly because, it’s the crappy shift, and there are no senior officers around. Most of those are on the second watch. The first mate is around but that is sporadically.
It was Karl’s knife. According to Bill anyway. Karl left the ship at Roup Regina. About a month before Hamilton arrived. No one saw him when the ship came back through Roup. It’s the only system that the ship visits twice. So everyone figures he moved on to whatever. His contract was up and he could have stayed but he seemed to want to get somewhere. The body is still unidentified. It will probably be some time. A DNA profile is being sent that area but it will be over a month before it becomes spread out to all the law enforcement agencies. And another month before they get a reply.
As for Karl, he was a pretty decent engineer. He had certificates in Power Plant and jump drive. As well as being an electrician. He was also known for being a gambler and would hit card places on leave. He was a card shark. “Say, you any good at poker?”
"Meh, so so." Hamilton replied.
“Well, every other thursday during third shift is card night. Poker, Fizzbin, you name it.”
“We’ll teach ya!”
“And Occasionally we get a player from another shift. Usually second.”
A couple of thyme just smile at you.
“Time to get back to the ship.”
Hamilton is sound asleep when the ship jumps.
When he comes on watch, he finds the Chief and Alfredo dealing with a bad generator. There are four of them for the ship. One of them is having an issue and is going to need to be pulled and repaired.
Hamilton lends a hand and was successful in assisting in the repairs. They had to grab another person from another shift as well. but everything is back online.
