by Gordon Grainger
“Are you sure I can leave you alone here?”
The question carried an insulting tone, but Jeb didn’t notice. Jeb Hanrahan didn’t notice subtlety.
“Yes, sir,” Jeb replied, with a quick salute.
Petty Officer Grady winced slightly. Technically, Jeb was not supposed to salute him, but Jeb had a tendency to salute anyone of a higher rank. And on this ship, everyone was Jeb’s superior. Even P.O. Grady, the cook.
“There are only five tasks you need to do, Seaman. I’ve listed them all on this chalk board. Just erase them as you’ve completed each task. That way, you won’t forget. I’ll be in the forward mess in case you need me; I expect I’ll be too busy to come check on you. So you’ll have to do everything for yourself. Do you understand?” Grady spoke slowly, carefully. He pointed to the board as he spoke of the tasks. He nodded toward the bow of the ship when he indicated where he would be. He shook his head to reinforce the idea he would be unable to return. And he pointed to Jeb to highlight the seaman would be alone. When dealing with Jeb, it was wise to be very clear.
Jeb saluted again. “Understood, sir.”
P.O. Grady sighed, and left the aft prep room. “Very well, seaman. Carry on,” he said as he walked out of sight.
Jeb relaxed, and turned to survey the room. The aft prep room was a wide and fairly open space, where the mess hall crew prepared the ingredients for the many meals served on board. It was not often used, however. The forward mess had enough prep space for the crew’s needs. The aft area was only needed when the ship carried a full complement of marines (which it currently didn’t have), or when a lowly seaman needed to be punished for some mild infraction (which it did have).
Waist-high countertops of gleaming steel stretched down both side walls, and above each were covered shelves two layers high. An island a full armspan wide extended down the middle of the room lengthwise, slightly off-centre, which held two open gas grills, a dozen burners, and an oven large enough to accommodate an entire side of beef on a spit with room for a dozen chickens to spare. Suspended above the island were six rapid-heat ovens and a canopy of pots, pans, and utensils. At the far end of the room were two sinks, an industrial dishwasher, and the door to the walk-in freezer. Against the near wall, ten large serving carts were parked in front of the access to the bulk storage bins.
Jeb took a moment to relish the situation. Aside from the hum of the ion propulsion engine virtually next door, the room was quiet. There weren’t many times aboard a stellar cruiser one could find time alone, and Jeb wanted to enjoy the opportunity. But he knew he had work to do, so he reluctantly reviewed the list on the chalk board to his left.
“One. Clean traps.”
He was immediately discouraged. The waste traps were large grills on the floor below each prep station, where the scraps, grease, and cleaning fluids collected. They needed to be flushed out on a regular basis or the entire waste disposal system would clog. While they did not have to worry about rodents the way the ancient navies did, there was still the possibility of disease and insect infestation.
Cleaning the traps would be an arduous task. Not only was it messy, unpleasant work, often times a lazy cook would drop a serving spoon or sharp knife through the grate and not bother to fish it back out. Not a good first task, thought Jeb.
“Two. Polish all steel surfaces.”
Jeb looked again at the wide expanse of counter tops and shelf doors. And while his mind grossly overestimated at a million square metres, it would still require a few hours to polish it all. Next! he thought.
“Three. Prepare one ton of fruitnuts.”
If Jeb was discouraged before, he was downright despondent now. Fruitnuts were the staple food of interstellar human navies. Somewhat larger than a coconut, they had a similar hard shell protecting a pasty (and bland) white pulp. The pulp itself was incredibly nutritious, providing virtually all the dietary requirements of an adult human. Plus the hard shell gave them an incredible shelf life.
The only drawback was the shell itself. It was so thick, only hydraulically-assisted mechanical devices had the strength to open them. Once split, the pulp was easy to scoop out, but splitting them was a long, monotonous chore. Maybe I’ll start from the bottom, Jeb thought.
“Four. Prepare a case of chickens.”
It wasn’t much, but it was a start. Cutting up a few dozen chickens wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t too difficult, either. Plus, thinking back to the first two tasks on the list, he thought it was probably better to get this task out of the way first, and not have to duplicate his efforts after. The chicken was bound to create some waste for the traps, and Grady would want the surface he prepared the chickens on to be cleaned and polished afterwards.
“Five. Move the serving carts into lockdown storage.”
Perfect, thought Jeb. I’ll start with the carts.
The serving carts were large trolleys, standing slightly taller than Jeb. Prepared meal plates would slide into the tray slots, where they would be secure for the trip to the mess hall proper. Temperature sensors embedded in the tray liners would maintain the correct temperature for each section, whether it was a steaming roast beef or cool ice cream dessert. At least, that was their ideal performance. As with most things in the navy, they didn’t always work as intended.
Jeb grabbed the nearest cart, unlocked its wheels and began pulling it to the entrance. The lockdown storage room was located across the hall, a large open area with maglocks to hold cargo in place during flight. He found an unoccupied section and manoeuvred the cart into position. Locking the wheels in place, he punched the correct code into the storage control panel. A short whine followed by a click assured him the cart was secure, and he went back for the next one.
Repeating the same task nine more times was boring, but Jeb was used to it. Most of his basic training had involved constant repetition of the same basic tasks – polishing his shoes, making his bed, running 20 kilometres, cleaning floors with toothbrushes. He didn’t mind. He enjoyed the simplicity of it, of not having to come up with things to do to pass the time. He discovered there was always somebody ready to give an order in the navy.
When he had completed the lockdown of the last cart, he took a moment to look around the storage area. It was a small bay, a cargo area for small repair equipment and replacement parts for various sections of the ship. Some were clearly marked – plumbing, electrical, and the like – while others were not identified. The manifest in the control panel contained descriptions and locations for all the items in storage, had Jeb been interested in looking.
Instead, his attention focussed on an odd looking piece of equipment. A cylinder – short, fat, and hollow – was attached to a revolving wheel, currently pointing almost perfectly vertical. The wheel was attached to an arm with two elbow joints, which was in turn attached to a very wide, flat base. The base itself was about two centimetres thick, and nearly a metre square. The cylinder was thin and hollow, with a number of wires and small tubes running from the cylinder down the arm to the base. The whole apparatus came up to his waist.
His first instinct suggested it was a weapon of some kind, like a mortar. But he quickly discounted this idea, since weapons had their own storage areas. It was the same with the engineering equipment, so it likely wasn’t some alien motor. Since it was in a non-secure public storage section, he guessed it wouldn’t hurt to start it up and see what it did.
There was a simple control panel containing a toggle switch and two buttons. The toggle switch read “fwd” and “rev”, and was in the “fwd” position. Of the two buttons, the green one was raised and the red was depressed. His finger reached for the green one, and pushed it.
Instantly, Jeb was knocked backwards by a concussion force. He felt as if someone had cracked his forehead with a very large bar of iron. Luckily it was a glancing blow, leaving his head pounding but intact.
He put his hand to his head to make sure he wasn’t bleeding, and discovered his cap was missing. Surprised, he looked around, but it wasn’t on the floor anywhere nearby. He looked up, and on the ceiling directly over the strange device he saw his cap. It was plastered there, held as if by an invisible iron, pressed completely flat.
Carefully reaching over to the device, Jeb pushed the red button. Released from the invisible hand, his cap dropped back down. He caught it and examined it carefully. The nap of the felt was crushed and would require brushing, and it was twisted awkwardly, but otherwise it was fine. He put it back on his head and decided that was enough curiosity for one day.
Back in the prep room, he erased the last task and read the next to last one again. Right, the chicken, he thought. He walked to the freezer and opened the door. A cloud of frosty condensation swirled around the entrance as he stepped inside. Near the back on the left was the pallet of chicken. Using a power dolly, he lifted the pallet from the shelf and wheeled it out into the prep room. He kicked the freezer door closed behind him, and pushed the dolly over to the side cutting station.
Along the wall, the one on the left when looking from the main entrance, there were three cutting sections. At each station, a large wooden cutting board pivoted from the wall to cover the steel counter top. In a drawer underneath the counter top was an assortment of knives, all held safely in place. Jeb lowered one board and selected a cleaver from the drawer below.
He wheeled out a large pot, big enough to hold half the chickens, and placed it to his left. He selected the first chicken from the dolly at his right. Two whacks severed the wings, and two more removed the legs. One split the back from the breast. Two quick chops removed the wingtips, which he tossed onto the left countertop. He tossed the chicken parts into the pot and selected the next bird.
For some, this kind of work would be drudgery. But not Jeb. In his youth, all he had ever wanted was to join the Terran Interstellar Navy. Their slogan – “Keeping you safe is our only task” – had been a comfort to him after his father left. He would pretend to be a naval officer, standing hands on hips, elbows akimbo in textbook hero stance, and repeat that slogan to his mother when she looked especially sad. It always seemed to cheer her up back then.
And he wanted to make her proud of him. Most of his relatives, and many of his friends, laughed at his dream. There were minimum standards for the navy, they would tell him, standards designed to keep people like him out. But that didn’t deter him.
When he applied to the recruiting officer, he heard about the minimum standards again. There was a minimum height, minimum eyesight, minimum intellect required. Jeb met every single one, precisely. He wasn’t a millimetre, gram, or point of IQ above or below any minimum requirement. The recruiting officer had known a few like him, barely qualifying for the force. Most just wanted a chance to be considered; few would make it through basic training. The recruiting officer accepted Jeb’s application, knowing he would never make it in the end. No harm in letting him try, the officer believed.
Jeb put the cleaver down. He had filled the first pot, so he wheeled it into the freezer. He took a second large pot, brought it to his cutting station, and continued to work through the chickens.
Jeb’s drill instructor was not impressed with him. Jeb was slow, body and mind, although he followed orders well and did as he was told. But he seemed incapable of learning complicated tasks. “You’ll never be officer material, Hanrahan!” the drill instructor would shout. Jeb never understood why he considered that a negative.
Much to everyone’s surprise, except perhaps Jeb and his mother, Jeb made it through basic training. All the standards of fitness, all the standards of aptitude, Jeb had met them all, exactly. Of all the recruits who had graduated from basic training, Jeb Hanrahan had the lowest marks – the bare minimum to qualify for graduation.
But in Jeb’s mind, that just meant he was better than everyone who didn’t graduate, or worse, didn’t even try. He was Seaman 3rd Class Jeb Hanrahan, Terran Interstellar Navy, a title and uniform he was proud to wear.
Finished with the last of the chickens now, he wheeled the second pot into the freezer beside the first. He went back for the dolly, moving the empty chicken pallet to the back of the room for a quick clean-up. While spraying it with the hose from the sink, he noticed a dip, then sudden rise, in pressure. Odd, he thought. Must be a sudden course change.
Once the pallet was clean he moved it back under the shelf in the freezer. He pushed the waste bits of the chickens off the counter and into the nearest waste trap, and proceeded to disinfect the counter and the cleaver. Once everything was reasonably clean, he went back to the chalk board and erased the third item.
OK, now the hard stuff, he thought. Right, the traps.
He opened the first trap, and it didn’t look as bad as he expected. Getting a scraper and hose extension from the lockdown storage across the hall, he started cleaning off the interior walls and used the hose to flush the loosened deposits away. It was slow work, but eventually he finished cleaning all the traps along the right hand side of the room. He replaced the grills and walked around the island to the other side of the room, where he had cut up the chickens.
The first two traps weren’t much of a problem. The third, the one with all the chicken, was completely blocked. No matter how hard he worked at it with the scraper, he couldn’t dislodge any of it, and the hose just made things worse. His only option now was to scoop it all out and hope to find whatever was blocking the trap underneath. That would mean cleaning the floors as well, and he wasn’t interested in increasing his workload.
For probably the first time in his life, inspiration struck Jeb Hanrahan. He remembered the strange device in the lockdown storage, and its effect on his cap. He wondered if it could force the blockage through the trap. It would certainly save him a lot of time and effort if it worked. So he crossed the corridor once more and wheeled over the device.
He locked the base of the unit to the floor near the trap opening. Adjusting the arm and wheel mechanism, he pointed the cylinder down at the blockage. He sighted it carefully, then pushed the green button. There was a slight hum, and Jeb was rewarded with an enormous plopping noise. He pushed the red button, then wheeled the device aside. It had done the job, pushing a hole through the waste and clearing most of the trap. A quick bit of work with the scraper and hose completed the task.
Pleased with his ingenuity, Jeb returned to the chalk board and erased the top task. Polish the countertops. Jeb smiled. I’m almost done, he thought.
He took the scraper and hose extension back to the lockdown storage and found the box of cleaning supplies. Donning the thick rubber gloves, he grabbed a sponge and the corrosive solvent used to clean and sterilize the steel surfaces. He allowed himself the luxury of whistling tunes to pass the time as he buffed the metal to a high gloss.
It may have been the fumes or just his simple nature, but Jeb was feeling quite giddy by the time he finished shining the last bit of steel. The whole prep area was gleaming, reflecting the otherwise weak light into the smallest crevice. Packing the cleaning supplies away, he washed up and returned once more to the task list.
That’s the number two task down, and just… uh…
Jeb stopped. After erasing the task he had just completed, there was only one task left. The board read simply: “Four. Prepare a case of chickens.” Jeb was slow, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew he had already prepared the chickens. He even had the reminder of the waste in the traps in case he wasn’t sure. Still, he went back into the freezer and confirmed that the chickens were already done.
Must have forgotten to erase that task, he thought. Guess I’m done. That didn’t take nearly as long as I thought.
There was only one problem. He didn’t have permission to leave the prep area. Without anything to do, and no supervision, Seaman Jeb Hanrahan was lost. He couldn’t remember the last time he had entirely to himself. And the first independent thought to suggest itself was naked women.
He was in the navy, after all. Though times had certainly changed, a stellar cruiser was still a navy ship, filled with men and women in close quarters for long periods of time. On occasion, incidents were known to happen, officers and enlisted personnel becoming a little too familiar. But for a seaman third class, there wasn’t much chance of that, so Jeb had to be satisfied with pinups.
However, the captain of this particular ship was a bit of a prude. He didn’t allow swearing, gambling, or pornographic materials of any kind. The sailors got around the no swearing rule by inventing new expletives, code words to say virtually the same thing. But there was no similar substitute for the other banned items, which didn’t stop the more intrepid crew members from smuggling a few images aboard. It just made them very inventive about hiding them.
Jeb assumed the cook was the sort of individual who knew many hiding places. In amongst the supplies in the rarely-visited aft prep room would be an ideal location. There were dozens of cabinets and hundreds of boxes squirrelled away. He started at the door and worked his way counter-clockwise around the room.
The first few cabinets held dry goods – sugar, salt, and spices mostly. He avoided any sealed containers and looked for any duplicate open boxes. Everything was as it was labelled, so he moved on. The cabinets at the end of the right wall held large containers of flour, corn meal, and other grains. There was no place to hide anything within them, so he shifted his attention to the cabinets against the opposite wall.
As he took his first step across the room, he felt as if an invisible hand picked him up and just as suddenly dropped him. Stunned, he looked around. One cabinet door had flung open, and two pots rattled around the floor. OK, that wasn’t just me, he thought. Must have been an interruption in the gravity field. Glad I’m not working engineering – Captain’s going to kill somebody.
He stood up, closed the open cabinet and replaced the two pots. He resumed his search with the cabinets on the opposite wall. Two were completely empty. A third held spare kitchen knives and cutlery. In the fourth, flush against the back wall, covered in dust and behind a box of aprons, he found something. It was a viewscreen, a thin membrane rolled into a tube. He brought it out and, after furtively assuring himself he was still alone, he unrolled it on the counter top.
He pressed the lower right hand corner of the membrane to activate the unit. The viewscreen, a microscopic layer of gel between thin layers of soft plastic, slowly changed from dull grey to a vivid green. When it had fully activated, Jeb slid his finger along the right edge to scroll through the options. Not knowing what to look for, he selected slideshow. Instantly, the green screen was replaced with the image of a sunset over a tropical island. Jeb wasn’t impressed.
Next came an image of a stunning rainforest waterfall, then a desert savanna. Jeb increased the display speed… jungles, tundra, wind-swept veldts, coral reefs. It wasn’t the beautiful scenery he had in mind. He deactivated the unit, rolled it back up, and hid it behind the apron box once more.
He had run out of cabinets. He discounted the freezer. He couldn’t imagine the cook hiding a viewscreen in there, and he wasn’t about to go rooting around in the cold for nothing. That left the storage bin access in the near wall. He reached for its handle and swung the door down.
Oedipus, he thought. Oe-di-pus.
The storage bin was filled with fruitnuts, the ones he was supposed to prepare. The third task on the list, the one he must have erased in error. The biggest task of all, and he hadn’t even started it. With all the time he’d wasted on his little search, he wouldn’t even have a quarter of them done before the cook came back. That would mean another reprimand, and probably another day of tasks like this one. It was a crushing blow.
He trundled off to the storage bay to retrieve the fruitnut cutter. A large blade on a free arm over another large blade fixed to the base, the fruitnut cutter wasn’t elaborate but it did the job. The hydraulically-assisted arm powered its way through the shell, precisely cracking the nut in half. Two holding bins caught the falling halves. Simple, efficient. Jeb brought it back to the prep room.
The most convenient place to set up was right in front of the fruitnut storage bin. He extended the chute from the bin, and it instantly filled it with fruitnuts. A small bar blocked the end of the chute, holding back the first fruitnut. Jeb rolled the fruitnut cutter under the chute opening, and locked it to the floor. He flipped the handle on the chute, releasing the small bar long enough for the first fruitnut to fall into his hand.
Jeb placed the nut on the base blade, then lowered the top blade to hold the nut. He depressed the cutter’s foot switch, and the top blade cleanly divided the nut. The two halves fell into the holding bins, and the top blade returned to its vertical position. Jeb flipped the chute handle for the second fruitnut.
There’s no way I can finish all these, he thought. Too bad I can’t use that other device. It sure worked on the traps.
He looked at the cylindrical mechanism, which he had forgotten to return to the lockdown storage. How could that help?
Inspiration struck again. He unlocked the fruitnut cutter and wheeled it to the far side of the room. Precisely lining it up with the chute from the storage bin, he locked the top blade in its vertical position and secured the unit to the floor. He locked it in the safety position to ensure the blade would not move.
Next he wheeled the cylindrical mechanism directly under the chute, precisely aiming at the top blade. Satisfied it was in position, he locked it in place as well and secured it to the floor. He pushed the green button. The top blade at the far end of the room wavered slightly, then held its position. Jeb took the second fruitnut, held it directly over the opening of the cylinder, and dropped it.
With a whoosh, the fruitnut shot across the room, striking the blade dead centre. The shell split perfectly in two, and the momentum carried the two halves to the wall, where they bounced away onto the floor. Jeb pushed the red button and retrieved the fruitnut halves. Satisfied with the results, he placed two storage bins against the wall, roughly where the halves had landed, and returned to the chute.
He pushed the green button once more, and flipped the chute handle. The third fruitnut fell in front of the cylinder and shot across the room. It struck the blade precisely, and the two halves struck the wall and rebounded directly into the waiting bins. Jeb flipped the chute handle a fourth time with exactly the same results, and again things went perfect the fifth and sixth times.
As Jeb flipped the handle a seventh time, the entire room lurched. Gravity was suspended for an instant, and Jeb was knocked off-balance. He had no idea what had just occurred, but he was more concerned over what was about to happen.
The handle on the chute had bent slightly in Jeb’s grip as he tried unsuccessfully to steady himself. The small bar that had allowed only one fruitnut at a time to leave the chute was now locked open. The cylindrical mechanism had remained in place, but the fruitnut cutter had moved slightly, just far enough to be outside the path of the oncoming fruitnut.
Jeb watched the seventh fruitnut drop from the chute. He watched it shoot across the room at blinding speed. He watched it miss the blade entirely, ricochet from the wall intact, and drive through the hanging pots and pans over the centre island. The eighth fruitnut didn’t wait for Jeb to notice it descend. It struck the far wall and ricocheted into one of the side cabinets, denting the door before careening across the room. The ninth and tenth blasted open a few more cabinet doors, while the eleventh knocked an open door clean off its hinges.
All this took place in the space of two seconds. Number twelve blasted a hole in a flour container, raining a cloud of white powder over the room. Thirteen struck the cutter at an odd angle, breaking its hydraulics and damaging the safety. Before Jeb could reach for the red button to shut off the mechanism, the fourteenth struck him square in the head and turned Jeb’s world black.
The steady beeping was the first sensation to reoccupy Jeb’s consciousness. It would have been the antiseptic smell of the room he was in, but his nasal cavity was otherwise occupied with a breathing tube. He couldn’t feel anything either, as if his entire body were simply missing. That could have been due to paralysis or heavy sedation, and the weight of his eyelids suggested the latter was highly likely.
What little visual information he could gather was therefore sketchy at best. Some sort of medical ward he assumed, but it was far busier than the one on his ship. There were many objects in motion around the room, doctors and nurses presumably. Jeb didn’t bother trying to straighten it all out. There were two objects quite close at hand, talking low but not exactly whispering.
“…multiple fractures, several compound… blunt trauma on all body surfaces… bruising to several internal organs… some blood loss, mostly internal bleeding. No apparent nerve damage. Should be back on duty in two months.” The words were spoken in a tired, flat tone.
The second speaker was younger, and slightly nervous. “N-n-noted. Umm, sir?” There was a brief pause. If the first speaker had responded, it wasn’t audible to Jeb. “You noted on the chart the injuries were sustained on 1074.15.82, active service.”
“They were.”
“So… that would have been during the Battle at Alhedrin Star? Aboard the Caspesian?”
“I believe they were. Why do you ask?”
“When TIN-C gets that, he’ll get a Gold Nova medal to go with his battle campaign ribbon.” Another pause, then the second voice continued in a hushed, reverent tone. “He’s a hero. A real battle hero.”
“Yes, that’s one way of looking at it. Still, I wonder how the hell he managed to get all those injuries when the Caspesian suffered so little damage…”
Jeb listened to the steady pulse of the medical monitors as the doctors moved on to the next patient, until their rhythm and the echo of the doctor’s words lulled him back to sleep. Jeb Hanrahan, he thought. Hero, third class.
About the Author
Gordon Grainger is an award-winning copywriter and former science columnist who writes stories that sneak up on you to reveal the familiar from a whole new perspective.
©2009 Gordon Grainger
