The Bonaventure

[knightgrace]

The ship gleamed with newness, and from stem to stern, was 212 meters long...she was a thing of ultimate brilliance conceived by Nomad 2049s Independent Logic Computers. She had already undergone the builder's trials, she had undergone the Customer's trials... she was ready, her first full up mission as a fully operational ship, was going to start in les than twelve hours. Her Captain, a veteran Chief Engineer was ready, she thirty-five years old, and wore a one piece uniform of stark white, the only colors were the gold badge over her left breast, and the rank strips on her sleeves. Her boots were white as well, slightly dirty on their soles. Her hair was in old style Imperial units twelve inches long, and lose. The hair color for the celebration was stark white as well. Her accent was from Queensland. And she for her generation was Down under to a T. In other words a Patriot. Some people addressed her 'Doctor ', but that was really too small for her.
The problem was that most people were far too reliant on the Independent Logic Computers, and by previous generations, were almost completely illiterate - third grade at best. About one in five went as far as an eighth grade education. And one in fifty a twelfth grade education. College? You must be joking. The situation was bad and getting worse. She was in the top one part in a thousand of scholars, with two Doctorates. It was bad. As she personally inspected her ship, she traveled around and around going from deck one to deck twenty. Not going into the highly radioactive areas.
Her face for the most part was full of pride in her ship, not in herself. This wasn't changed until she came to a source of a dull ache in her soul. The weapons. The two she was looking over were brand new Phasers Mark IIIs, Type VIs. They weren't ugly to her, you must understand, they were tools at best, she thought. They were there because of the Kzinti...
The United Earth Space Probe Agency had decided that being fully armed was better than nothing. Phasers? You say?? Yes, Phasers. Phasers had existed since 2009, in a crude format by today's standards.
But the pride and joy to her were the two Space Warp Drives. Fusion powered.

 

[knightgrace]

The United Earth Space Probe Agency Ship Bonaventure was forty days out and space was contracted to a total of 320 light-seconds down to one light-second. It had taken roughly those forty days to attain this state of affairs.
Why?
Because of the number of systems checks per second that were required, just to maintain the minimum requirements for safety. The space ahead had to be carefully observed for anomalies, which in this case, wasn't as easy as it first seemed. While it was true that space around Earth was known, mostly by telescopic observation, with very few. Comparatively speaking, Manned ship, none of them had anywhere near the capabilities of the Bonaventure and her sister ships - the plan was for thirty of them, with an additional five already undergoing builder's trials, and a further two undergoing customer trials. The customer in this case was the United Earth Space Probe Agency. Problems were now being found on a daily basis. Not major, or so it was thought, in some cases this wasn't true, but only experience would tell the powers that be, otherwise. Basically it was the level of total ignorance about the actual space out to a four hundred light-year radius that was the problem. To very over simplify, telescopic observation delt, with the distant past, not the actual 'now'. What this meant was that the calculated gravitational properties, "wasn't ".
You may start screaming now.
In other words, it was an uncontrolled sleigh ride across the sea of stars. While being pulled along by an aquatic sea mamal - in other words the Nomad computers. Straight line courses weren't the norm.
Another problem was that any course change beyond a certain number of degrees would drop the Bonaventure out of warp...suddenly, with violence. Not good for the ship, even less good for the warp engines.
Don't get me wrong, the ship was built strong, but the ever lasting question was 'Is it strong enough?'
The two warp nacelles were designed too soon... but they had to be, because Earth was desperate. Because of the Kzinti, among other factors.
For example, the nacelles, if they had been properly used instead of abused, would undergone acceleration due to space warp, instead of acceleration due to gravity, of only warp factor one, preferably less than this, instead of warp factor two.
They didn't know, and still didn't precisely, about that. So instead of taking 320 days + to attain 320c equivalent they took 40 days.
With the ship groaning all the way.
This shortened the expected lifetime of the ship as a whole.
Another problem was quite something else. The navigational deflectors weren't up to the entire range of particulate matter. It had been assumed that it was mostly water ice. With a few bits of nickel iron thrown in. Once again delayed observation was the problem.
What this meant was that the deflector response system was working overtime, just to protect the ship. In practice, this meant that a few holes in the massive fuel tanks at the far end of the warp nacelles had been holed, several times. Overall this meant that, in total a maximum of three liters had been lost.
Not great enough, you say? It would mean the difference between returning home, and not returning home to some ships. Every drop counted...

 

[knightgrace]

It was the American Thanksgiving. The First Officer was hosting the Thanksgiving, as the only American onboard. The crew had celebrated the Canadian Thanksgiving a few weeks before, and there were ten Canadians onboard...Americans in general were poorly represented in the United Earth Space Probe Agency...
No, that's not the reason.
No, not that one either...
Nor that one.
But that one.
Americans went face palm too much.
The ones that got to qualify, were too meritorious to serve. In space.
Or so it was said in back hallways.
The First Officer, was expertly carving the turkey. Very expertly.
The Bonaventure continued to function very well indeed on this the first real mission. The Captain was quite pleased with the way the crew was shaking down. Really beginning to work well with one another - so far no surprises.
The ship's sensors had cataloged seventeen unusual results, and the science group was taking them apart just to be sure that they were real, and therefore worth reporting directly to home. Of these, detections, three had occurred in two different star systems.
The ship's course was still on the outward portion of the mission. Acceleration due to space warp was now higher than at the start, taking some thirty-nine days to get up to 320c.
Her First Officer had suggested that perhaps unarmed combat skills should be beefed up for all crew members. The Chief Engineer was a triple black belt in three different martial arts.
The Chief of Security underneath the Chief Engineer, was putting through the crew with arms training. A limited number of rounds were available for target practice. All at the behest of the First Officer.
A routine had been established, that would be carried forward. If you weren't doing you job, then exercise. So at any time during the day or night one could see several different groups of people jogging along the companion ways. Or in the weight room.
No swimming pool, however...
There was, however no pleasing the First Officer.
Of course not.
As for the First Officer's campaign with the Captain, it was preceding nicely.
If the Chief of Security hadn't known about it, from the first, the First Officer would have chewed him out. Precise details, for the most part weren't required.
The Chief Science Officer, on the other hand was in the First Officer's sights. In other words in real trouble. The examination of the surrounding space for signs of any activity was in his purview, not just astronomy.

 

[knightgrace]

To walk down the companion ways of the Bonaventure, was a study in being careful. At launch, every companion way, had supplies two deep, and in some cases three deep. But in one case the entire companion way was totally filled.
Mostly food stuffs, clothes came second, electronics third. This in spite of the fact that the fabrication facilities were very capable of manufacturing just about anything needed. This says nothing about the cargo bays, nor of basic elements storage spaces. Way?
Need you ask?
Fabrication devices could fail...is the primary reason, the second, while idea, we're the limitations on food fabrication - only about fory flavors per meal time; breakfast, lunch, dinner, and midrats. Keeping in mind that at any time only one quarter of the crew was actually fully active.
The crew? Two hundred plus members. Virtually the same as a much later ship, in a smaller package than that later ship. Meaning cramped, as in very.
As for individual crew quarters, very few were individual, due to the amount of supplies involved. In other words they had to consume their way down to be able to afford that luxury. This was going to be difficult due to the level of recycling, already imposed. Which is one major reason why the main fuel tanks were on the far ends of the space warp nacelles...
The Nomad computers were the latest in 'independent' logics, basically what "independent " meant was that they were very expensive random number generators, with selected constraints. The selected constraints meant that the only choices available were those most likely needed on a moment by moment basis.
In other words, something akin to a Quantum based computer system. But not!

 

[knightgrace]

The main computer system aboard the Bonaventure and her sisters was, from a hardware perspective, barely changed over previous units. By later standards, they were barely adequate for the purposes of the job at hand. True they were much improved versions of the old Nomad space probe, which had been launched some fifty years before...
Independent logic was still the thing, even more so, but the plain truth was that no one really wanted to relie upon them in an emergency, because strange things could and did happen. So, the main computer system were limited to ninety percent independent control. In part because of the afore mentioned problem, and in part to keep the crew alert.
Zephram Cochran was a Star Frontiers gamer he loved that game, hence the reason why the individual control panels were called 'CACs(Computer Access Computers)'... who knew him, always, and on purpose, behind his back always rolled their eyes. Why? Because one moment he's talking at graduate level physics major, the next...'Star Frontiers ', even more annoying, getting complex theoretical physics calculations completed, just by talking about 'Star Frontiers'...
Very, very annoying.
But it worked.
Even more annoying.
Of course what he was doing was war gaming it out, in a very successful bid.
Never mind about jumps through the void... there was no way any ship, any time soon, was going to be doing that. He knew it, but this didn't stop him from having fun...especially with the old sticks-in-the-mud.(He was also a fan of certain early 2000s movies dealing with pirates).
This led to certain problems later on when first contact with some aliens, occurred.
In the meantime, while the bridge was circular in nature, the three inverted horseshoe desks, that had the CACs, each sitting three people, and starting at the back, Captain's station, to his left navigation and to his right Helm. Going to the starboard side desk in the middle was the First Officer's station, with Communication towards the stern, with Science forward. To the port, in the middle the chief engineer, to the stern weapons 1, and forward Weapons 2.
But it wasn't quite that simple...all of them were reprogrammable. Behind them all, in easy reach, were the backups. Crowded.

 

[knightgrace]

...One week before launch... The Captain and her First Officer, went into her quarters, she closed and locked the door...
Then she started screaming to high heaven, in various languages, not one swear word...just a continuous stream of cursing, after fifteen minutes, she finally calmed down, meanwhile her first still stood standing, in a relaxed but respectful posture. Now very respectful. She didn't notice having her eyes covered over by one hand. She hadn't thrown things.
The The representative from the United Earth Space Probe Agency, just about disarmed, us, she said, they want us to put limiters our weapons.
This startled him, while he admirred her torrent of vindictive comments, which was truly awesome in breath and depth, it was her look in her face that he realized he truly admired. He knew that type of look.
The problem is inspections. We can't obviously have full power weapons...
Find away around this.
He had just been given a blank check. There would be no paperwork on this.
Two days later, the bypass was rigged. To all intentions obedience, but the bypass was quite simple.
For him. It would pass any inspection. The Bonaventure would have full weapons capability. At the very least with the Mark III TYPE VI Phasers.
Kzinti would not be much of a threat. As it was they never met any Kzinti on their first mission.

 

[knightgrace]

It was subtle.
Not immediately obvious.
One only had to tap twice at the Executive Officer's station.
Thos would free up, depending on how close to Earth they were, full power plus. In other words an overload shot. Something was strongly discouraged, very strongly discouraged.
Why? No reason in particular, just a tad more pacifistic - this in the middle of "minor problems" with the Kzinti. The powers-that-be were down playing getting eaten, alive as a good thing.
This was one of the reasons why Americans weren't welcomed into space.
One of the leading proponents of a more pacifisctic bent, volunteered to get eaten.
He last scream as he was torn limb from limb, was attempted to be covered up. But retransmission was automatic.
There were severe questions now being asked back home, among other things.
But the pacifists block was in control...
In other words, people continued to get eaten.
It reached a point where the whole thing blew up in the face of the pacifists.
Pacifists Derangement Syndrome - PDS, became a widespread term. And removing them from office, created, the post atomic horrors.
Post Atomic Horror referred to Nuclear Intensity Plasma Based weapons, among other things. Actual Atomic Bombs weren't used too widespread in damage. A much, much later Starship Captain, didn't know what he was talking about, neither did that alien.