Last Call

Engineering Update

A neon green wire frame of the EAS Toledo spun slowly in midair, projected from the blueprints uploaded to the map room. An oval dais held the projection unit and its lighted top illuminated the paper blueprints scrolled open. Two empty mugs stolen from the conference room and a palmtop computer weighted down the corners. Captain Gideon’s hand kept the fourth corner down as he glanced back and forth between the blueprints and the 3-D display.

The Toledo was simple in its design; a saucer-like unit for command and the modest crew quarters, immediately flanked by three long tubular sections stacked like a collapsed tripod along the core. Quad engines powered the craft and make it jump gate capable, but nothing guarded it against attack. Freighters didn’t have weapons as a rule, relying on escort ships for defense of its cargo, especially if the cargo was expensive or in great need.

A rustle of paper made Gideon look up from the plans, his eyes leveling on an engineering tech in discussion with Lieutenant Matheson as they walked in from command. The tech was Jaime Gomez, that much the Captain knew. Gomez was in his late fifties or early sixties, silver taking over nearly all of the dark hair of his mustache and short crew cut. Dressed in utility overalls flecked with grease and dust, they held the insignia of Chief, a position that oversaw the rest of the engineering staff.

“Find something, Mister Gomez?” Gideon looked on expectantly as the tech thumbed through his papers, assisted by Matheson to bring them to the dais.

“I’ve gone over every speck of equipment the Toledo was packed with, and not much of that would have remained through the decommission process. I don’t know what could be used to track her. She has a standard drive with standard emissions like thousands of other Earthforce ships. And because she’s not a tactical craft, her com systems would have been standardized with just a few modifications to encode or decode gold channel signals. That section would have been stripped first.

“She was built to be low key—like a space-faring pachyderm—carry cargo, a minimal complement of crew, and enough fuel to take her half-way around the universe. The drive cores were immense….” Gomez paused, lifting a hand to rub the side of his thumb along the corner of his mustache. Thin eyebrows knitted together as he thought, his eyes unseeing as he stared absently at the dais.

“Mister Gomez?”

“Captain, you said she was leaking radiation?”

“That’s what the distress call stated anyway, but the pilot said levels were low.”

“That was most likely an internal reading. Unless there was a hull breech in command,” Gomez pointed to the saucer-like section, “not much more than normal levels would be observed. That whole area is shielded.”

“But if there was a hull breech in the engine section, radiation would filling the immediate area.” Gideon continued, pointing to the engines as he circled his finger around the hind end of the display.

“And by what Lieutenant Matheson tells me about the interference, that could be the cause.” Gomez nodded his head. “But I’m afraid that will only work under closer range. There’s too much additional radiation out here to reliably try to track a leak plume from one particular ship.”

“What amounts of radiation are we talking?”

“Depends on the severity of the breech. Could be just a few parts per million to several billion parts. Although if the engines were really damaged, I doubt the crew would be around to send a distress call.”

“How come?” Gideon lifted his hand from the blueprint as he crossed his arms over his chest, keeping a hip against the dais for balance.

“If there was a good breech to the engine core, the ship would have blown nearly instantaneously.”